


Surviving High School

by Croatoanvirus2014



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Multi, TW: self-harm for chapters 16 and beyond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-29
Updated: 2016-06-02
Packaged: 2018-02-23 03:41:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 40
Words: 51,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2532800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Croatoanvirus2014/pseuds/Croatoanvirus2014
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Basically I decided to write a high school AU for the 100 where all of the characters go through a year of school. There's drama, new relationships, and friendships forming everywhere. (The first few chapters are shorter in length, but the chapters get longer as the story progresses)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The First Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I used to have this on a different website but I moved it over here, so that's why these first few chapters are going up quicker than usual

Clarke walked into Mount Weather high school with her backpack heavy and her head in the clouds. She had woke up early today to make sure she was on time for her third year of high school, thankful that next year would be her last. She pulled out her schedule to see where her homeroom was, and then went to go find some of her friends before she went to class. Going to find the one person she knew would be here early as her, Clarke wondered who she would see in her classes this year. _Maybe Octavia? Wait, no. She’s a year below me. Bellamy maybe? He’s a year above me, but we were in the same Spanish class last year, so there’s a chance._ Her train of thought was shifted as she saw Raven in the hallway. Clarke waved and smiled, grateful to see her best friend’s familiar face.

            “Raven, hey!” Clarke yelled enthusiastically.

            “Oh hey, Clarke,” Raven commented tiredly when Clarke got closer to her locker. Clarke ran up and gave Raven a hug. Raven groaned and mumbled “tired” as she rested her head on Clarke’s shoulder. Clarke gave her a pat on the back and told her to wake up soon.

            “I’ll try,” Raven replied. “I should probably get to my first class. Maybe I can take a quick nap in there,” she added.

            “Wait up! Let’s compare our schedules really quick.” Raven unzipped her backpack and fumbled around for her schedule for a few seconds. As they compared their schedules they both smiled as they realized they had three classes together: social studies, pre-calc, and physics.

            “Well, I guess I’ll see you second bell, Raven!” Clarke said as she heard the warning bell ring. She ran to homeroom and took her seat right before the teacher walked in.

            “Does anybody want to help me pass out papers?” She asked in a monotone voice. A few people raised their hands, but Clarke just put her head down feeling tired. Somebody dropped a paper on her desk and she looked up and realized she fell asleep for a good five minutes. _We still have another ten minutes left. Ugh._ She looked at the clock which seemed to be ticking slower by the second, and then the teacher started calling everybody up to get their locker number and combination. _Well, at least I’ll have a place to put all of these books. My back is already killing me,_ Clarke thought as she walked to the teacher’s desk to get her combination. She grabbed the small strip of paper and headed back to her seat. She started to tap her feet to try to keep awake for the next ten minutes. _Why can’t this bell just ring sooner?_ Her next bell was English, which was an easy subject for her to pass, despite how much she disliked writing out essays late at night. The bell rang after what seemed like a year, and Clarke headed to her first bell to truly start the first day of the new school year.


	2. The Other First Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Basically it's the first day, but this one is more from Monty and Jasper's perspective

“Monty, wake up! We’ve got to get ready for school!” Jasper whispered urgently. They couldn’t be late for the first day of school, but Monty was impossible to wake up in the morning. Jasper took a deep breath before he decided to go blast some music to wake up his boyfriend. As the music blasted through Jasper’s laptop speakers, Monty woke up startled.

            “Turn it down!” Monty yelled. Jasper did as Monty requested and then went to the kitchen to get something for them to eat. Jasper grabbed a box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and headed back to Monty’s room, only to find him asleep again. Jasper took Monty’s blanket off of him, hoping that would wake him up. Monty mumbled something that Jasper couldn’t understand and grabbed for his blanket.

            “Not until you get up,” Jasper replied. “Here. I’ve even got breakfast for us,” he said as he handed the box of cereal over to Monty. Monty reached for the box of cereal lazily and ran his fingers through his hair. Monty shoved a few handfuls in his mouth and then went to go get dressed.

            “Hurry up, we can’t be late!” Jasper reminded him.

            “Okay, mom,” Monty sarcastically replied as he put on a t-shirt. After he threw on a pair of jeans he walked back into his room to find Jasper already dressed and eating breakfast. “Do you want to go wake up my mom? I mean, you can already drive, but it would be nice to go remind her that today’s our first day of school this year.”

            “Yeah, that’s probably a good idea,” Jasper admitted, “but if she’s as bad as you are to wake up it’s not happening.” Monty laughed and they went to go wake up Monty’s mom before heading out to go to school. After she was awake they reminded her of what today was, to which they got “I know! Have a good day!” and a kiss on the cheek for both of them. Jasper’s parents were always working, so Monty’s parents let him stay over whenever he needed or wanted. Jasper walked out to his car, Monty following behind him. It was a decent car, but since it was his first car his parents didn’t want to spend too much money on it. Still, Jasper was grateful. Monty got in the passenger seat and put on his seatbelt as Jasper turned the keys to start the car. Monty changed the radio to some alternative rock station and turned it up just loud enough to keep him awake. They sat in comfortable silence for the ten minute drive to school and groaned when they walked into school for the first time in months. They sat outside the school for a few minutes after they realized they had another half an hour before school started. Monty rested his head on Jasper’s shoulder and Jasper looked up at the sunrise that spread across the morning sky. Jasper ran his fingers through Monty’s hair and checked the time on his phone to make sure they wouldn’t be late. _We’ve only got twenty minutes left,_ Jasper reminded himself. He nudged Monty and told him they had to go to their classes.

            “I don’t want to,” Monty whined.

            “I know, but we have to,” Jasper replied with sympathy. Monty let out a sigh and both of them stood up. Monty grabbed Jasper’s hand and walked Jasper to his homeroom. Jasper gave Monty a quick kiss on the cheek before Monty went to his homeroom to start the months of torture that were school. It wasn’t that Monty hated school; it was that he hated waking up early and hated being forced to learn things he wasn’t at all interested in. As Monty walked to his homeroom, he saw his friend Octavia walking down the hallway with some blonde girl he hadn’t seen before. _Is that the new student everybody was talking about? What was her name? Was it Harper? Yeah, I think it was._ He looked at the clock in the hallway and realized he only had another five minutes to get to class. _Whatever, I’ll talk to her later. She seems chill._ He walked into his homeroom and hurried to take his seat before the late bell rang. As the bell rang he whispered to himself “only 205 days to go.”


	3. Texting in Class

Clarke tapped her pencil against her desk as her teacher went over the class rules that had been repeated in different ways to her for seventeen years now. She could practically recite them on her own at this point. _Yes, we know not to have our cell phones out in class. Nobody cares._ She rolled her eyes and pretended to pay attention to the oh so fascinating rules. She looked around at the empty walls around her and wished the teacher would be done talking already. _I don’t even care that I’m breaking the rules,_ she thought as she took her phone out her purse. _Being in the back of the classroom sure does have perks._ She hid her phone under her desk and sent out a quick text to Raven after she double checked that she set her phone to silent.

            “Clarke, are you on your phone?” The teacher asked accusingly. Clarke put her phone back in her purse and muttered a quick “sorry.”

            “Just make sure I don’t see it again,” he replied sternly. Clarke rolled her eyes as soon as he looked away and sighed. _I still have another half hour until I get to see Raven. Great._ After the teacher outlined the class rules he allowed the class to talk quietly. _Who do I even have to talk to in here?_ Clarke wondered. She pulled out a book she had been reading over the summer, on Raven’s recommendation, and read for the rest of the class. _I’ve only got twenty pages left. Yes!_ She thought as the bell rang. She finished putting away her book and she walked to her second bell, making sure to save a seat for Raven. Raven walked in the room with her hair pulled up in a ponytail and a smile across her face. She walked over and sat down next to Clarke and immediately started rambling on about anything and everything.

            “So the first football game is next week and we should totally go, and it would be tons of fun, and we could even paint our faces to show our school spirit and yeah you should ask your mom tonight, and I could totally give you a ride if you need one.”

            “Okay, slow down. I agree that we should go, but I have to ask my mom first. And when is it again?”

            “Next Friday!” Raven confirmed.

            “Sounds good. Now be quiet, the teacher is talking again. Even though it’s boring I don’t want to make yet another bad first impression. It already happened once today when a teacher caught me texting you.” Raven chuckled slightly and they both sat there bored for the rest of the bell.


	4. Football Friday

“So tell me again why you dragged me to this football game,” Monty complained. He zipped up his jacket to try warming up even though it was extremely windy outside that cool night. Jasper wrapped his arm around Monty as they sat down on the bleachers and replied “I thought it would be fun, okay?”

            “It’s so cold outside though,” Monty whined. He rubbed his hands together and Jasper gave him the hot chocolate he bought from the snack stand.

            “Here. Take this. It’ll hopefully warm your hands up.” Monty perked up and wrapped his hands around the styrofoam cup, pleased when the heat reached his fingertips. The smell of cocoa filled the chilled air around him as he took small sips of the dark brown beverage. Jasper looked around and tried to search for a familiar face. As his eyes scanned the crowd he saw Clarke and Raven cheering loud whenever anything that was deemed good occurred, and he noticed Octavia sitting next to Harper while they shared a bag of popcorn.

            “Octavia! Over here!” Jasper tried to yell above the noisy crowd. Octavia looked over, attempting to find who called out her name. Jasper stood up and waved her over to where he and Monty were sitting, and a few seconds later Octavia and Harper joined them.

            “Oh hey, Jasper! I haven’t seen you since summer!” Octavia exclaimed.

            “Yeah, I guess we didn’t get any classes together this year. Oh well, there’s always next year. Also, is that your brother as the quarterback this year?”  
            “Well he’s a senior now, so yeah. Now he’s the quarterback,” Octavia replied. She took her hair out of a ponytail and ran her fingers through it to make it look better before she reached for another handful of buttery popcorn.

            “So, uh, who’s the new girl?” Monty asked out of curiosity.

            “This is Harper! We have a few classes together and she’s pretty cool,” Octavia answered. Harper smiled and blushed slightly before she went back to focusing on the close game down on the football field. Monty nodded his head in approval and looked at the painfully bright numbers on the scoreboard, thankful that he only had to survive another hour of the cold weather. Monty put his now empty cup of hot chocolate a few feet away from him on the bleachers and grabbed Jasper’s hand. Jasper started yelling once the team scored another touchdown and noticed Clarke and Raven were walking down near the fence that separated them from the field. Clarke pressed her body up against the fence and cupped her hands around her mouth to yell even louder, and Raven pumped her fist in the air. Clarke caught the eye of Bellamy and smiled at him, hoping he would notice her cheering at the sidelines. Her eyes lit up as he glanced over at her and waved while the team was taking a timeout.

            “Clarke, do you want to go get something to drink? I’m getting thirsty.”

            “Yeah, uh, sure,” Clarke replied, still not quite focused on their conversation. Raven snapped her fingers to get Clarke’s attention and they started walking over to the snack stand, Clarke looking behind her to check on the game every few seconds. They were winning by a good fourteen points, but she knew it could still change in the time they had left. Raven pulled a wrinkled five dollar bill out of her jean pockets and handed it to whoever was working behind the counter.

            “Can I get two bottles of pink lemonade?” Instead of responding to the question, Raven was handed the bottles and given back a dollar in change. She gave him a quick smile before running back to the fence to watch the rest of the game. Clarke unscrewed the cap of her drink as she noticed the score getting even closer and the time left getting lower. She crossed her fingers as she took a gulp of it. Her blue eyes were fixated on Bellamy as the last play of the game started. It was tied, but she knew he could pull through and win this somehow. Her eyes followed the football as it was thrown halfway down the field. As the ball was caught and ran in for a touchdown, the crowd started yelling, and Clarke was happy to join the excitement that filled the stadium. Raven looked at Clarke’s grin and started screaming with her, delighted that their school won their first game of the year.

            “Good job, Bellamy!” Clarke exclaimed as the team walked back over to the sidelines.

            “Thanks!” Bellamy yelled back with a smile spread across his face. Clarke held Bellamy’s gaze until Raven tapped her on the shoulder a few seconds later.

            “Clarke, we’ve got to get home and I don’t want to face all of this traffic,” Raven stated. Clarke waved goodbye to Bellamy and walked with Raven to her car, happy with the way the night turned out.


	5. Dress Shopping

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't going to post anymore chapters today but then I saw that people seemed to be enjoying it so here's another chapter, and I hope you enjoy it c: (I already have up to chapter 9 written but I was going to post chapters at a slower pace)

“You know, I like going shopping for homecoming dresses, but did we really have to go shopping for them on the night of a football game?”

            “Yes, Clarke, we did. I’m already hanging out with Monroe tomorrow, and most of the good stores are closed on Sunday. Why does it matter?”

            “It’s just, I really like seeing Bellamy play football and we always talk a bit after the games and just-” Clarke shrugged her shoulders while she tried to come up with an answer. “-I don’t know, but I hate to miss a game.” Raven nodded her head understandingly and handed Clarke a dress. She took the pink, glittery dress out of Raven’s arms and went to the dressing room to try it on. She searched for the zipper on the back of it, and after she unzipped it she pulled up the dress, struggling a little in the process. She looked at her reflection in the mirror and realized that the pink was much too bold for her liking, and didn’t look good with her hair color. She took it off and threw on her outfit she wore that day, a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, and stepped out of the changing room. Clarke saw Raven looking at a beautiful royal purple dress a few feet away, and smiled because she knew Raven had found her dress for homecoming. _Now to try to find one for me,_ she thought with a sigh. Pastel blue and glistening green dresses were everywhere in sight, along with hints of purple, pink, and even a few black dresses with ribbon wrapped around them. _Can’t I just find one nice, pink dress?_ She walked around the store, trying to find the one “special” dress that she would know when she saw it. As she was looking at yet another dress that she thought might work, Raven snuck up behind her and tapped her on the shoulder. Clarke jumped back slightly and turned her head to look at Raven.

            “I found my dress!” Raven announced excitedly with a grin plastered on her face. Clarke looked at the dress she was holding and smiled, knowing it would look amazing on her friend.

            “That’s awesome! Did you already try it on?”

            “Yeah, and it fits perfectly,” Raven replied. “Have you found a dress yet?”

            “I’ve found one or two that look good, but I haven’t found _the one_ yet,” Clarke responded, trying to seem hopeful. “Maybe if I go to another store I could find one,” she continued with optimism.

            “Then let’s go! Let me just buy my dress first and then we’ll go to another store to try to find you one.” Raven and Clarke walked up to the cashier and Raven handed over the money for her dress. As they walked out of the store they noticed Octavia and Harper also shopping for dresses.

            “Are you also shopping for a dress, Octavia?” Raven asked out of curiosity. Harper held up a dress and turned to face Raven.

            “Yeah, we’re shopping for our dresses together,” Octavia replied. “I can’t seem to find one, but Harper has already found two that look amazing on her.” Harper smiled at the compliment and went to go try on yet another dress, leaving Octavia to talk to Raven for a second.

            “Well, at least she found some,” Raven laughed, “If you want to find a cute dress, try to go for a purple or blue. I bet those colors would look great on you! Anyways, I’ve got to go take Clarke to try to find a dress. Good luck!” Clarke looked at Raven, silently pleading her to finish the conversation. Octavia waved goodbye, and they walked out of the store to Raven’s car. Raven put her dress in the backseat, making sure not to get it dirty or wrinkled, and then got in the driver’s side.

            “So, do you have any idea who you’re going to ask to homecoming?”

            “Well, I mean, Bellamy is pretty cute, but we’re a year below him. He’d never notice me,” Clarke replied with a sigh.

            “You know, I heard he’s single, and besides, you never know until you ask.”

            “I know Raven, but I’m way too afraid to ask. He seems nice, but I don’t want to get rejected by him.”

            “Maybe you could drop some hints. You said you two usually talk a bit after football games, right?”

            “Well, yeah, but-”

            “So, ask him if he’s taking anybody to homecoming. If he says he isn’t, then you’ve probably got a chance. Besides, if he does reject you, we can just hang out because that’s what best friends do for each other.” Clarke smiled slightly and thought about how she was going to ask Bellamy out, or if she was even going to. Raven drove them to the next store, and when Clarke walked in and found the perfect dress, both of them knew that it was definitely a good sign.


	6. Proposals

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everybody who has taken the time to read this! I never expected this to get so many reads in such a short amount of time and uh yeah thank you :D

“Dude, homecoming is this weekend!” Monty said in a panicky tone of voice. “What are we going to do? We haven’t planned anything yet.”

            “Calm down, I’m sure we’ll figure something out. Besides, it’s not like we have to worry about who we’re asking out,” Jasper winked.  Monty and him walked to his locker while holding hands. When they got there, Monty sat down on the cold tile of the school hallway as Jasper started picking out the books he needed for the day. To Monty’s surprise, Jasper also pulled out a bag of sour gummy worms. _Why does he even have those in his locker?_ Jasper handed the bag to Monty and as Monty read the note attached, a smile formed.

            “Yes, I’ll go to homecoming with you, you dork,” Monty replied, pulling Jasper into a hug. “Come on; let’s go buy our tickets for it. My mom gave us enough money to pay for both of us.” As they walked to go get their tickets, they saw another proposal about to happen. Monty pointed it out and grabbed the back of Jasper’s hoodie as he told him to wait.

            “Is that Bellamy holding flowers behind his back?” Jasper asked.

            “That was my thought, too. I think he is,” Monty responded, curiosity forming. Jasper looked around and realized that Octavia had snuck up behind both of them, and was also looking at her brother.

            “He is. He says that this girl named Clarke likes him, so he thought he would ask her out,” She said while rolling her eyes. “I can tell he likes her too. She’s been hanging out at our house recently, and everybody can tell those two are so in love with each other,” Octavia confirmed. Jasper and Monty stood there until they saw a girl with blonde hair walk up to Bellamy. _That must be Clarke,_ Jasper thought. Clarke walked up to Bellamy tired, like most mornings now that the initial excitement of going back to school had faded. She gave him a kiss on the cheek and a sweet smile, and he grinned back at her. _She’s so beautiful,_ he thought. _Well, I guess it’s now or never. You can do this, Bellamy._ His hands trembled as he handed Clarke a bouquet of bright pink and red flowers. Her eyes lit up and she gave him a quick kiss on the lips before he could even ask what he needed to. After a few seconds he asked the question he had spent this last week worrying about.

            “Clarke, will you go to homecoming with me?” He asked nervously.

            “Do you know how badly I’ve wanted you to ask that question? Yes!” Clarke replied with a smile brighter than the sun itself. Monty playfully punched Jasper on the arm.

            “Why didn’t you ask me out like that?” He joked. Jasper laughed and told him “because neither of us are that fancy or romantic.”

            “Okay, you got me on neither of us being fancy, but I think you’re romantic,” Monty teased, making Jasper blush. “Anyways, let’s go get our tickets for homecoming. Class starts in fifteen minutes,” Monty reminded him. Jasper wrapped his arm around Monty and they walked to go buy their tickets for the dance that Saturday. Bellamy walked Clarke to her first class of the day feeling like nothing could ruin his day. As Clarke walked into her class she took notice of the few people that were staring at her. _What? Did I murder somebody or something?_ Clarke shook her head slightly and sat down in her seat. After checking twice to make sure her phone was on silent, she put it in her purse. _Oh hey, I did leave my lipstick in here. I’ve been wondering where that went._ She took out her magenta-colored lipstick and quickly applied it as the bell rang to start the day of school. The first few bells passed by in a blur of boredom and knowledge Clarke knew she would never use again. _Okay but when am I ever going to need to solve a system of equations out in the “real world”? This is so annoying._ She looked over at Raven who seemed to be working diligently on solving one of the problems on the worksheet they were given for the day.

            “Hey Raven, could you help me with these? I have no idea how to do this.”

            “Let me finish this problem really quick. I’m almost finished,” she replied with a hint of irritation that Clarke picked up on. _Maybe she’s just having a bad day,_ she reasoned. Raven finished up her problem and then explained to Clarke how to solve the problem.

            “Got it?”

            “I’m pretty sure I’ve got it. Thanks Raven.”

            “No problem.” Clarke couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong, but she didn’t press the issue any further. _I’m probably just being paranoid about it. Still, what if I did something to upset her? What could I have even done?_ Clarke was more than relieved when the last bell of the day rang so she could go home and relax for a while, or so she thought. As she threw her backpack on the floor of her room, she checked the texts on her phone. Her eyes widened as she saw a text from Raven.

            **Raven: We need to talk.**

Clarke sighed. _I knew something was wrong._


	7. Apologies

            _Maybe this isn’t about me. Maybe this is about something else and I’m just over thinking this. At least I hope that’s what’s happening._ Clarke’s fingers trembled as she texted back.

 **Clarke: what do you need to talk about?** _Just calm down, I’m sure whatever this is can be fixed._

 **Raven: I’ve just been feeling sort of left out lately, you know?** She wasn’t trying to be annoying or seem clingy, but she really just wanted her best friend to pay attention to her a little more. Clarke gulped and took a few deep breaths before attempting to form a response. _Have I really been leaving her out that much? I mean, I know I’ve been hanging out with Bellamy a lot lately, but he’s my boyfriend. Then again, Raven is my best friend. Still, shouldn’t she be happy I have a boyfriend now? She knows I’ve liked him for a while now. Whatever, I’m sure she’s not too upset. She probably just wants to hang out a little more, and I can’t say I blame her._

 **Clarke: I see what you’re saying. I just wish you would’ve told me a little earlier, but hey, it’s all good. wanna hang out soon? That would be fun!!** was the message Raven received about a minute later. She tried to smile, but to no avail. It was hard to do when she felt ignored. _At least she isn’t mad at me, so I guess that’s good._

 **Raven: Sure! Let me ask my mom when we can hang out. Does next Friday sound good? This Friday is way too soon, since you know, today _is_ Thursday, but I think next Friday might just work. ** Though she sent her text back with a smile, the second it finished sending her face switched back to a frown. She tapped her foot, hoping Clarke would text her back to confirm their plans instead of deny them. Clarke ran to ask her mom if they could hang out at Raven’s house next Friday, and gave her a hug when she agreed.

            “Of course you two can hang out! Tell Raven I said hi!” Abby yelled as Clarke walked back to her room. Clarke smiled and told her that she would as her fingers tapped against the touch screen of her phone.

 **Clarke: My mom said that’s fine, but to check with ur mom to make sure**!! Raven was instantly relieved, and went to tell her mom her and Clarke were hanging out next weekend. _I’m so glad she didn’t deny it because she had plans with Bellamy again. Then again, homecoming is in two days and I’m probably going to be completely ignored there. Whatever, at least I get to hang out with her next weekend._ Her mom was happy to have Clarke over, and so was Raven.

 **Raven: looks like you’re coming over next Friday. My mom also said it was fine, hoorah!!** She started pulling her books and binders out of her backpack, dreading doing her homework for the night. _At least I can look forward to hanging out with Clarke now,_ she thought as she searched for a pencil. As she pressed the lead of her purple mechanical pencil to the sheet of notebook paper, the screen of her phone lit up for what seemed like the hundredth time that day.

 **Clarke: Awesome, see u next Friday!** Raven placed her phone on her desk and sprawled out on her bed to get started on her homework. _What do I even want to start on? I’ve got math, history, and English tonight. This English does look really easy though._ She turned on some music in the background, since the silence would irritate her more anything else at the moment. As the first notes of a song played, Raven wrote down the answer to her first question on her English homework. The next hour or so was spent like this, along with occasional glances at her phone to check the time and to see if she had any texts, even though she never did. _Hopefully dinner will be soon, I’m starving._ She started to lose her focus, too preoccupied by her growling stomach. She paced around her small bedroom for a few seconds before heading out to the kitchen to grab a small snack.

 _Thank you mom for buying fruit snacks._ She grabbed a packet of fruit snacks and a poured herself a glass of lemonade. Raven sat at the kitchen table, taking a small break from thinking about how to solve one of her math problems she had been stuck on. _At least my problem with Clarke is solved, but this math problem might not ever be._ She laughed slightly at her own joke and put her now empty glass of lemonade on the kitchen counter and threw away her fruit snack wrapper before she retreated back to her room. _I don’t even care, I’m skipping this problem,_ Raven decided, not wanting to spend any more time trying to figure out how to even start solving the seemingly impossible math problem that lied before her. _Well, I guess I’m done with my homework then,_ she realized as she put the worksheet back into her purple and black plaid folder. She let her hair out of her ponytail and sprawled out on her bed, grateful that she had finished her homework for that night. Raven let her mind wander for a while, but she kept focusing on homecoming. Her instinct was telling her that something was going to go wrong, but she had no idea what it could be. _I so hope I’m wrong about this_.


	8. Homecoming Parade

“Are we going to the homecoming parade tonight?” Monty whispered to Jasper so the teacher couldn’t hear.

            “There’s free candy. Why wouldn’t we go?” Jasper responded while raising an eyebrow. Monty grinned and leaned his head against Jasper’s shoulder while they tried to pay attention to what their biology teacher was saying.

            “Okay so we’re doing a project on dinosaurs.” A few groans were heard, but most people just put their heads down and tried to fall asleep. Like usual, somebody decided to ask “can we choose our partners?” A few people lifted their heads back up as they awaited the answer.

            “Yes, you can choose your partners.” A few glances were exchanged around the room as people decided who they were working with. Monty gave Jasper a small smile and was grateful he already knew who his project partner was.

            “Each group has to choose a dinosaur to do this on. You can choose whatever dinosaur I have information on up here. I’ve got the allosaurus, spinosaurus, edmontosaurus…” She continued listing off different types of dinosaurs and Jasper nudged Monty.

            “Edmontosaurus, more like edmontysaurus,” Jasper commented as he started to laugh. Monty let out a long sigh and then started laughing along with Jasper.

            “I’m so done with you,” he replied after a few seconds.

            “Oh come on, you know it was great.”

            “Okay fine, it was,” Monty admitted. Though it was a bad pun, both of them kept quietly laughing while the teacher kept calling on groups to choose their dinosaur. When it was their turn to choose they both looked at each other for a second before Jasper quickly replied “edmontosaurus.” The teacher checked it off of her list and sent Jasper and Monty back to their seats. She gave out the rest of the instructions and told the class that they could start working. All at once everybody ran to the box of markers, trying to get their supplies before they got trapped in the small crowd. Monty stood up to go get their supplies, but Jasper grabbed his jacket sleeve and zipped open his pencil bag to reveal tons of markers.

            “I may have temporarily borrowed some,” Jasper said.

            “Temporarily borrowed, huh? Is that what you call stealing now?” Monty questioned with a smirk on his face.

            “Relax, I’ll return them at the end of the year,” Jasper responded. They started going to work on their project, blue and green spreading across pages of blank white paper as they wrote down the information needed. The rest of their school day was one of bad puns and a little less work than usual as they became increasingly more excited for homecoming the next day. Finally the last bell of the day rang, and Jasper and Monty walked to their lockers, relieved that it was finally the weekend.

            “No homework this weekend!” Monty exclaimed with joy.

            “Same here!” Jasper replied, matching Monty’s enthusiasm. They ran out to Jasper’s car, eager to get back to Monty’s house and to hopefully not get stuck in the parking lot traffic. Luckily, they didn’t, and they pulled in Monty’s driveway a few minutes later. They walked through the door and were greeted by Monty’s mom.

            “Welcome home! How was your day at school?” She asked like she did every day.

            “It was fine,” they responded in unison. They headed into Monty’s room, and after Monty closed the door behind them he turned on some music. Jasper kicked off his shoes, and Monty did the same.

            “We’re going to get so much candy tonight,” Jasper said hopefully.

            “Yeah, but it’s going to suck walking all the way up to the high school,” Monty replied as he searching through his dresser while he tried to find more comfortable clothes for the night. He settled for a pair of sweatpants and quickly changed, not caring that Jasper was in the room. He sprawled out on his bed and yawned.

            “I’m tired,” Monty whined.

            “Then take a nap,” Jasper replied.

            “But the music is too loud, and it’s so bright outside,” Monty continued as he grabbed his orange blanket and wrapped it around himself. Jasper turned down the music and shut the window blinds and looked at Monty to see him smiling.

            “I’ll wake you up before we have to go, okay?” Jasper asked. Monty nodded his head and fell asleep while Jasper kept entertained by playing computer games. After an hour or so of clicking on the mouse and tapping on the keyboard, Jasper realized it was time to wake up Monty. Jasper opened the window blinds and turned the music back on, which woke Monty up within a few seconds. He put the blanket in front of his face in a feeble attempt to block out the sunlight, but then Jasper reminded him of the time and his eyes widened with excitement. He threw on a pair of black sneakers and walked to the car with Jasper.

            “So, what’s the plan exactly?” Monty asked as he got in the passenger’s seat.

            “Drive up and park in the high school parking lot, and then we walk a little so we can get closer to the beginning of the parade,” Jasper responded, pleased with his plan that he came up with while killing virtual monsters. As they drove up to their high school they began to see some of the traffic that was starting to form for the homecoming game.

            “Well, it looks like it’s going to be packed tonight,” Monty said as they pulled into the parking lot.

            “Yeah, definitely,” Jasper confirmed as they stepped out of the car. They started walking towards where the parade started and listened to the leaves crunch under their feet. Monty and Jasper both could hear the marching band start to play in the distance, and they grinned as they realized the parade had just started. They stopped where they were and breathed in the crisp fall time air as they waited for the parade to get to them. A few seconds later Jasper pointed out the art club banner and they grinned as a handful of candy was thrown out. They both desperately scrambled to try to get some of it, but all they got was a few Tootsie Rolls, which neither of them particularly liked. Monty frowned, but hoped that the rest of the clubs still had better candy left. Luckily they did, and Jasper ended up catching a few starbursts from the chess club. Monty and Jasper high fived after they realized that all of the starbursts were pink ones. They saw the rest of the clubs pass, and both of them still tried to catch some of the candy, but they only ended up getting a few packets of smarties.

            “I think that’s all we’re gonna get,” Monty stated. Jasper nodded his head in agreement and they both started the walk back up to the high school. The leaves on the trees they walked by formed a sunset the same colors as the one that was in the sky at that moment, and Monty had to stop and take a picture on his phone.

            “Are you seriously stopping to take a picture?” Jasper questioned with a small laugh.

            “Oh come on, you know it looks great,” Monty retorted. Jasper gave him a small smile as Monty clicked the button to take a picture. He shoved his phone in his pocket and then grabbed Jasper’s hand as they continued their short walk back. The level of noise grew the closer they got to the gates, and they went to go find a seat in the stands.

            “Dude, I’m so excited that homecoming is tomorrow,” Jasper commented.

            “I’m just happy that I get to spend it with you,” Monty replied with a grin. They sat through the game, cheering at the right time, and both of them were screaming in excitement when Bellamy threw the winning pass of the game.


	9. Preparations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for taking a while to upload this chapter! I didn't want to upload it until I almost had chapter 10 finished, and since I'm probably about halfway through that right now, I figured I should upload this chapter today. Thank you for all the kudos on this and for just reading this in general! Hope you enjoy this chapter c:

            Raven curled another section of her dark brown hair while waiting on a text back from Clarke. They were supposed to have dinner later that night along with Bellamy and Octavia. They had made reservations at Olive Garden a few weeks in advance, not wanting to deal with the huge crowd that would surely be there for homecoming dinner. As she sprayed more hairspray, her phone vibrated on her dresser. She took a quick glance and saw “Clarke” pop up on her screen. She set the curler down slowly, not wanting to accidentally burn herself again, and read Clarke’s text. “I’ll be over soon. I still need to get ready but I can do that at ur house yo,” it said. _What time is it anyways?_ Raven wondered. Looking at her phone screen she saw it was only a little bit past noon. _At least I still have a few hours to get ready._ They planned to go to dinner at 6:30, but Raven knew her hair and makeup would take a long time to perfect, so she had started early in the day. She had already put on her dark purple dress, and was amused at the way the rhinestones on the straps reflected in the light. A few seconds passed as Raven texted back “get over here soon haha, i’m so bored.” She turned on some music to pass the time, and returned to curling her thick hair, annoyed that it took what seemed like forever to curl all of it. _It’ll be worth it soon enough. I’m going to look great._

“Raven! I’m here!” Clarke yelled as she walked into her best friend’s room. Raven smiled and took a break from curling her hair to give Clarke a hug, happy that she got to her house quickly.

            “Finally! What took you so long?” She asked.

            “My mom was talking on the phone to Bellamy’s mom for forever. She wanted to make sure we would be safe and that nothing bad would happen,” she responded, putting air quotes around the word “bad”. That earned a small laugh out of Raven, and Clarke shook her head with a small smile. “Oh, by the way, should I go put on my dress now?”

            “That’s probably a good idea. I mean, you don’t want to do your hair and then put on your dress because that would probably mess it all up, you know?”

            “Yeah, that’s probably true,” Clarke admitted. She closed the door and told Raven to look away for a few seconds while she put on her dress.

            “Yeah, because I’m so totally just going to stare at you,” Raven responded, her voice thick with sarcasm. Clarke could almost hear the eye rolling as she pulled her dress down a bit at the bottom. She turned around to Raven and asked her to tie it in the back. Raven gave her a small grin and quickly tied it. “You look wonderful,” Raven complimented. Clarke blushed slightly and responded back with a quick “thanks, you too” before she sat down on Raven’s bed.

            “So, are you so excited to dance with mister Bellamy Blake?” Raven teased. Clarke laughed and replied with a sarcastic “no, not at all.” Clarke tucked her hair behind her ears and blushed as she started to look for the right color eye shadow to compliment her outfit for the night. _Not that it’s going to matter,_ Clarke thought, _it’s going to be too dark in the gym to even notice_. _Still, it’ll look nice for pictures,_ she thought as she noticed a shimmery pastel pink color. She sat down in front of Raven’s mirror and quickly applied it, and drew a thin line of black liquid eyeliner in before letting Raven sit back down to finish curling her hair. A few hours later, they were finished getting ready.

            “Not too bad. I mean, you only got accidentally burned by the curling iron once, and I only messed up my eyeliner like three times before getting it perfect. I’d call this a success,” Raven commented as she slid on her black heels, delighted with the way the few rhinestones reflected in the light. Clarke took her phone out of her small silver purse and motioned for Raven to come take a picture with her. They both grinned as the camera shuttered, and had almost walked out of the front door before Raven’s mom had stopped them.

            “Wait up! I want to take a picture of this moment to remember this, girls,” she said.

            Raven rolled her eyes but obliged her mom’s request. After a few pictures, Clarke and Raven hopped into Clarke’s car and drove off to Olive Garden, and hoped the Blakes would be there on time. Five songs later they had pulled into the parking lot of the Olive Garden and realized it was going to be forever until they could find a parking spot.

            “I knew it was going to be packed, but I didn’t think it was going to be this bad!” Clarke yelled over the blaringly loud music. Raven turned the volume down and replied with “at least we have reservations.” Clarke honked her horn at a car that had almost backed into her and gave the driver an angry glare as she pulled into the now available parking space.

            “Well, we did it! We found a parking space!”

            “Yeah, but our car almost got hit!”

            “Yeah but we didn’t” Raven shrugged as they got out of the car. Clarke glanced around the parking lot, trying to see if she could find Bellamy’s car. _He’s probably parked way far away, especially if he just got here recently too,_ she reasoned. They walked into the restaurant eager for food and hoping their night of fun had just begun.


	10. Homecoming

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting today because I just wrote up the next chapter. For some reason I'm in a writing mood today so this chapter you're getting even earlier than I expected. Again, thank you to those who have stuck with this story and have kept reading it!

            Bellamy pulled open Octavia’s door, helping her step out so she wouldn’t trip over her heels that she had almost no practice walking in. Octavia smoothed her purple dress and stumbled across the parking lot, leaning on her older brother to help her. As clouds started passing over, she silently prayed that it wouldn’t rain. She had spent an hour doing her hair, making tiny braids in seemingly random places and putting the rest in an up do she had found on the internet. As the wind blew, the smell of hairspray was apparent and Octavia coughed as the smell engulfed her. _It’s worth it for the hairdo,_ she kept telling herself. _Besides, I’m sure Harper will think it’s cute, and that’s what really matters._ They walked into the restaurant, making sure to reserve a table for four so that Clarke and Raven could join them once they got there. They were led to their seats, and realized that Clarke and Raven had beaten them there once they sat down across from them.

            “Oh hey, Raven!” Octavia said in surprise. She motioned for her to sit with her, purposely giving her brother and Clarke the space they needed. Over the next hour they all ate and made small talk, even if it did seem like Bellamy and Clarke were lost in their own world at times. Octavia and Raven would glance at each other and start snickering when they got that way, and immediately received glares from the couple. Almost simultaneously, everybody stood up to leave.

            “Well, I’ll see you guys at the dance!” Octavia yelled to Clarke and Raven while walking back to Bellamy’s car. Her heels clicked as she felt a drop of rain hit her hair. _I knew this would happen. Hopefully this won’t get worse._

            Octavia was helped out of the car and into the doors of the high school gym.

            “I’ll be right back, O. I just have to go park the car real quick.”

            “It’s fine Bel. I know I have friends here. You can seriously leave me alone for the rest of the dance and I wouldn’t mind. Go have fun!” She encouraged him. She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and headed off to find Harper, but first she kicked her shoes to the corner. _They look good for pictures, but these are killing my feet._ Octavia ran towards Harper, pulling her into a huge hug.

            “Found you!” She yelled over the sound of the almost unbearably loud music. Harper smiled and gave Octavia a quick kiss on the cheek, smirking when she saw her blush.

            “Your dress looks amazing,” Harper complimented.

            “Thanks! You look great too,” Octavia returned. _I so hope she’ll ask me to dance later tonight. Maybe I’ll ask her if I can work up the courage._ She grinned and started to dance awkwardly near Harper, sending both of them into a fit of laughter.

            “Hey, I’m going to get something to drink. Want to come with me?” Harper asked, twirling her curled hair nervously.

            “Yeah sure,” Octavia responded as she started to follow her. They walked slowly, making sure not to bump into any couples that were already grinding on each other for some reason. She waved to Jasper and Monty when she saw them, and they both yelled a quick hello to her before getting lost in their own world again. She peeked around, trying to see if she could spot Bellamy and Clarke. So far she hadn’t seen them, but she was sure that they were having a grand time together. Octavia pushed her way through the small crowd that had formed around the cooler of water, even though it was really just an old Gatorade cooler they had used for sports teams filled with water. She grabbed two of the plastic cups that were sitting on a cafeteria table and filled one for both her and Harper. The water spilled out slowly as she realized they already needed to refill the cooler. Both of the cups were filled up about halfway when she gave up on trying to get just one more drop out. She walked over slowly to Harper, making sure to not spill the drinks.

            “Here you go,” Octavia said while handing Harper a cup.

            “Cheers!” Harper exclaimed as they both downed their water before heading back to the dance floor. They both exchanged a glance at each other as they realized they walked into a slow song. Octavia laughed nervously.

            “Haha, slow songs are so dumb. I mean, they’re really just for people with a date and it’s always the same few songs,” she commented, trying to clear up the awkward tension that just arose between her and Harper.

            “Yeah I know. I mean, if I had a date I would dance, but no guy would ever ask me out,” she replied. Octavia gulped and her hands started to sweat slightly, making her want to both run away and stay in the same spot at the same time. Harper raised her eyebrows as she noticed Octavia has suddenly crossed her arms and seemed to be backing away a little from her, even though she could tell it was unintentional. _Well, it definitely won’t be a guy asking her out in a few seconds._ Octavia took a deep breath before the words “do you want to dance with me” stumbled out of her lips. Harper nodded with a knowing look on her face as she took Octavia’s hand. Though their first dance was a little bit “off” seeing as neither of them actually knew how to dance, Octavia was just glad that she was dancing with the girl she loved.  As the song ended and they pulled away, it became obvious that both Octavia and Harper’s cheeks had turned a bright red.

            “I think I’m going to go look for my brother really quick. You know, just to make sure everything is going fine with him and his date. Want to come with me?” Octavia asked. Harper grabbed her hand and followed her. She looked around for Clarke’s dress, since it would be easiest to spot them that way. However, what she saw made her gasp in shock. Bellamy was off in the corner, but he wasn’t dancing with Clarke or Raven. In fact, he wasn’t dancing at all. _Is he seriously kissing somebody else?_ Octavia took a few steps closer, just close enough to make sure that she wasn’t looking at some other guy on accident. _I mean, a lot of guys look like my brother;_ she tried to reason with herself. It was Bellamy though, and he was definitely kissing somebody else. Octavia obviously didn’t expect that, but she really didn’t expect him to be kissing the guy who had broken her heart in middle school. _I can’t believe he’s kissing Murphy._


	11. Can't Keep it Secret

            Octavia stomped up to her older brother, not caring that she left Harper behind. This was more important.

            “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” She screamed, pulling Bellamy and Murphy apart from each other. Bellamy started to sweat nervously and tried to run away, but Octavia grabbed him by his tie. He looked anywhere but his sister’s eyes, knowing he could not possibly explain this if he tried. He knew he was guilty and completely and totally wrong for it, but it just felt natural to him.

            “Well, I guess you saw,” he replied, pushing his hair back while taking a few deep breaths, knowing that he deserved every ounce of hatred placed on him in that moment. “Murphy, just go away. I need to talk to my sister,” he stated, knowing he didn’t want him around for this. Octavia snapped her fingers, forcing Bellamy to look her in the eye.

            “Obviously. Explain. Now,” She commanded.

            “I uh. I really have no good explanation for this,” Bellamy replied. He gulped and tried to continue on. “It just felt right, but I knew I couldn’t tell anybody for obvious reasons. Don’t worry; I at least made sure Clarke was off with Raven so she wouldn’t see.” _I am the biggest asshole ever. I fucked up so bad. Why do I keep doing stupid stuff like this? I know it never ends well,_ he told himself. Octavia looked at her brother with hatred in her eyes, and realized that her eyes were starting to water. She rubbed them quickly, not wanting anybody to see her like this. She had just caught her brother cheating on his girlfriend, and didn’t want it to somehow get worse, even though she could already tell it was going to be.

            “Well, I guess that’s good. You know, that your girlfriend didn’t see you cheating on her. How do you think she would feel, Bellamy? That’s right, she would probably feel like shit, and you know it!” Octavia shouted at him, her voice beginning to crack. She could tell Bellamy was purposely avoiding her glare, and that just made her more irritated.

            “Look at me, Bellamy!” She demanded. Bellamy’s eyes flickered upwards for a few seconds, but were right back down to the ground. Octavia ran away angrily, not caring that she could hear Bellamy pleading for her to come back and talk about it.

            “Soon enough you’ll be saying the same thing to your girlfriend whenever she finds out,” she spat back at him. He stopped chasing her after she said that, and retreated to go find Murphy, hoping he could at least try explaining things to him. _What am I even going to say to him though? I’m a terrible person because I really liked kissing him even though I have a girlfriend? That just makes me sound even worse. Great._

Octavia buried herself into Harper’s embrace, not caring that she knew her makeup was coming off and that she knew Harper could feel the tears against her skin. She was a sobbing wreck, and she couldn’t hide it anymore. She was so glad that Harper hadn’t asked her what happened yet, because she couldn’t be calm enough at the moment to explain what she had just found out. _God I hope that Clarke or Raven doesn’t see me right now and asks why I’m crying._ Unfortunately, that was exactly what happened a few seconds later as she felt Raven tap on her shoulder. She turned around to face her, knowing that her face was red, but not in a good way this time. There was no happy blush associated with this red, but rather fury, rage, and devastation mixed into it. Octavia looked at the ground and started sobbing again. Raven wrapped her arm around her. Harper gave her a nod and went to go get all of them a cup of water, knowing they would probably need it.

            “Hey, what’s wrong, O?” Raven asked in a concerned tone of voice.

            “Don’t call me O right now,” Octavia said harshly, even though she didn’t mean it to come across that way. Raven slowly walked her out to go sit down in the cafeteria, knowing that Harper would be there waiting. She didn’t resist walking out of the gym, and hoped that getting away from there would help at least a small amount with her current state. Octavia sat down slowly, and Harper wrapped her arm around her waist as she started trying to explain what she had seen.

            “Well, Raven, you especially might not want to hear this,” She started off with.

            “Hey, I’m tough enough to take it, whatever it is,” Raven responded, hoping that she really was.

            “My brother is uh, cheating on Clarke, and I just caught him,” she managed to force out before she was sent into another fit of sobbing. Harper pulled her in closer, stroking her hair to try calming her down.

            “You want a cup of water?” She offered. Octavia shook her head no and saw Raven standing up. _She’s going to tell Clarke. I don’t even care. Clarke deserves to know the truth about what an asshole my brother actually is._ Raven walked away in a way that seemed like finding Clarke was a top priority mission, although in a way it was. Raven could feel her heart beginning to sink down to the bottom of her stomach, knowing that Clarke deserved so much better. She scanned the dance floor for her best friend, wanting to make sure she heard the bad news from somebody that actually cared about her. As Raven saw Clarke smiling, she realized just how much she dreaded having to tell her what just happened. _It’ll ruin her night, but I’d rather tell her the truth now than have her find out from somebody else tomorrow,_ she decided as she walked over to her friend.

            “Hey Clarke, can we talk really quick?” Raven asked, trying to come across as cheerful, although she knew it wasn’t working that well. Clarke looked at her for a few seconds, tilted her head, and nodded yes.

            “What’s up? And don’t say that you just wanted to get a cup of water or something. I can tell when you’re upset, and you definitely are right now.”

            “You might want to sit down for this,” Raven replied. Clarke felt her heart begin to break as she sat down, knowing that whatever she was about to hear couldn’t be good.


	12. The Fallout

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took a while to put up! Anyways, hope you enjoy it

Clarke’s palms started sweating as she anticipated hearing some sort of terrible news. The last time she had been told she might want to sit down before hearing something it had been when her grandmother died three years ago, and it had never once been associated with anything good. She had been told to sit down before news of death, having to move out of their house because her mom couldn’t support it anymore, her parents getting a divorce even before that, and so many other terrible things. She had a feeling that wouldn’t be changing now.

            “Well, hit me with the news,” Clarke told Raven while her eyes began to water.

            “Bellamy cheated on you,” Raven said, her voice cracking on the last word. Clarke took a deep breath before she started to sob. She tried to speak, but she couldn’t find any words to say and she knew that she couldn’t get the words out over the sound of her crying anyways. Raven sat down next to her and wrapped her arm around her waist, knowing that she’d be there for a while, although she didn’t mind. She hated seeing Clarke this broken up, and Clarke regretted how much she once loved him. _I just want to get back at him somehow,_ Clarke thought. _It’s so wrong but how could he cheat on me? I did nothing wrong! I hate him so much. Why did I ever love him?_ Thoughts along that line raced through her head the rest of the dance. Gradually, she stopped crying and wiped the streaks of mascara off of her face with the back of her hand. She grabbed her phone out of her purse to check the time, and let out a long sigh when she realized she still had half an hour left before it was time to leave.

            “Do you still want to dance?” Raven asked, trying to help cheer up her best friend. She knew that it wouldn’t make Clarke anywhere close to better, but she figured it might help to get her mind off of things for at least a few minutes. Clarke stood up and nodded her head yes, following Raven back into the gym, hoping she wouldn’t see Bellamy anywhere. Her and Raven walked over to a corner of the gym, not wanting to be covered in sweat or feel like they couldn’t get out of a crowd. Raven spotted Monty, who she knew because they were in the same chemistry class, and dragged Clarke over to go see him.

            “Hey Monty! How are you doing?”

            “I’m doing pretty good, just waiting on Jasper to get back here with something to drink. This suit has me burning up, and it being burning hot in this gym doesn’t help either,” he replied. “Who’s your friend? I don’t think I’ve seen her.”

            “Oh, yeah, this is Clarke. Clarke, this is Monty,” Raven said. Clarke gave Monty a small grin and told him she was pleased to meet him.

            “She’s kind of been having a rough night,” Raven whispered to Monty when she knew Clarke couldn’t hear. Monty nodded in understanding as Jasper came back empty handed.

            “Nothing left to drink?” Monty guessed.

            “They’re packing everything up since there’s only like half an hour left anyways. Who’s this?” He asked while pointing at Clarke and Raven.

            “Oh, that’s Raven, and that’s Clarke,” Monty responded as they started to walk away. Clarke didn’t want to talk to anybody, but she also didn’t want to come off as rude to a new potential friend.

            “Hey Raven, can we leave early?”

            “Yeah that’s fine. You sure you’ve got everything?”

            “I just have to find my shoes really quick, but yeah, everything else I have,” she confirmed as she searched to find her pair of black high heels. _Did everybody decide to wear black heels this year because it feels like it,_ she mentally complained as she searched for her pair, specifically looking for the studs that were on the back of her heel. She turned the brightness on her phone up all the way, knowing it would be good enough for a temporary flashlight. She spotted her shoes and grabbed them before another song could start playing, and with Raven right behind her, they started to walk out of the gym. They heard a slow song start, and both of them groaned loudly, making each other laugh for a few seconds. Raven saw Octavia and Harper dancing together and tapped Octavia on the shoulder to give her a thumbs up.

            “I’m glad to see you’re still enjoying the night,” Raven commented.

            “Yeah, well, at least I’ve got Harper,” She responded with a grin.

            “Well, you two have fun, but me and Clarke are gonna go!”

            “See ya!” Octavia shouted as Raven and Clarke finally left. Clarke walked to Raven’s car as quickly as possible, trying to get out of there before she started crying again. She had never had her heart broken before, and she already knew that she never wanted it to happen again. It hurt too much. Raven opened the door for her and then walked around to get in the driver’s side. The car started and music started playing. Raven changed it within seconds as soon as she realized it was yet another sad breakup song, and that was the exact opposite of what they needed right now. She plugged in her phone and started blasting Fall Out Boy, knowing it would cheer both of them up. They had gone to a concert to see them last year, and it was definitely one of the best days they had ever had together. As she saw Clarke smile ever so slightly, she started singing purposely off-key, trying to make her laugh. It worked, and Clarke burst out into laughter with a lasting smile that was there until Raven dropped her off at her house. She got out of the car and pulled Raven into a huge hug, thankful that at least something had gone right that night.

            “Well, I guess I’ll see you Monday,” Raven said.

            “I guess so. Thanks for being there for me tonight, Raven. It really means a lot,” Clarke replied before walking into her front door.

            “Hey, it’s no problem. I’ll always be there for you, and you can count on that.”


	13. Break up or make up?

            Murphy had been texting Bellamy since homecoming had happened. It wasn’t much, just a text here and there every two or three days, with the desperate hope for some sort of response. In one of them he had even suggested going trick-or-treating since Halloween was in three days from now. He never got a response. He flopped down on his bed after another day of school, and attempted to start his homework, though that failed within minutes. The second the pen hit the paper, he lost all motivation to start working. Bellamy had finally texted him back, and to him, that was more important than doing homework a few hours earlier.

 **Bellamy: hey.** He glared at his phone. _Seriously Bel’? Three letters?_

 **Murphy:** **Oh, hey.** _Well, at least he’s finally talking to me again. I thought he would never forgive me after what happened at homecoming, even though it was his fault. He didn’t tell me he had a girlfriend._

           **Bellamy: Listen, uh, about homecoming. I’ve realized over the past few weeks that it wasn’t really fair of me to hate you since you didn’t actually do anything wrong. Sorry?**

            **Murphy: It’s fine. Really i just wanted us to be friends again.** Murphy was ecstatic, but didn’t want to come off that way. Mentally he was jumping up and down like somebody who just found out that they won the lottery, but physically he was lying down on his bed, tired as could be.

            **Bellamy: “it’s fine with me. i could use some people right now that don’t hate me, even if it was my fault tbh.”** Murphy grinned and went back to playing the game of Trivia Crack he had started with Miller earlier that day in the middle of class. Right now he was up 3-2, but he also knew Miller was almost notorious for comebacks at the last second. Murphy groaned when he got yet another geography question, and was surprised when his guess was right. _Who actually knows that Libya borders the Mediterranean Sea though?_ Despite one good guess, he missed the next question, and subsequently went back to trying to think of how to respond to Bellamy’s text.

            **Murphy: “i’ve never had that many friends, so i know the feeling haha.”** _Why would I even send that? So much for never letting people know anything about me. My oh-so-great aura of mystery is about to be completely gone,_ he thought while rolling his eyes. He had finished his game of Trivia Crack (Miller won, as expected), and had even done all of his homework before Bellamy texted him back.

            **Bellamy: Well hey, at least you’ve got me, so that’s something lol**

            **Murphy: tru i guess at least that’s a good thing haha.** He continued texting Bellamy back for the rest of the night, relieved that they were finally talking again. The last few weeks had been disappointing. He had tried saying hi to Bellamy, tried working on projects in class with him (every time he had found somebody else to work with), and even gone to a football game out of desperation to just see him. Of course, Murphy had eventually realized that none of that would ever work, and that he was really just hoping for the best while expecting nothing, which he decided was a weird mindset to be in for weeks straight.

            However, it wasn’t like he could easily make that go away. He had tried to, though, and was recently hanging out with Miller more in hopes to distract himself. _We’re the only people in the school who actually go by our last names, so that has to count for something,_ he reasoned. Asking Miller to hang out had been awkward, but it was better than sitting at home every day watching movies while trying to get over what felt like a breakup. Last week they had hung out at the mall. Murphy had decided he needed to be out of the house, and Miller had driven over and picked him up, on the promise that he would be getting Starbucks out of the deal. Murphy had laughed at the request, but agreed quickly. They spent that day with Murphy listening to music on his headphones while they sat at a booth in the food court. Miller had brought his book bag and mainly just worked on his homework. Though it was fairly quiet, both of them were just happy to have some company for once. At one point Murphy went on a rant about Bellamy, which was basically along the lines of “it’s so annoying that he won’t talk to me, especially after we went to homecoming together.” Miller had stopped doing his homework to pay attention to this story, finding it both sad but entertaining at the same time. That day had been the only one Murphy clearly remembered recently. The rest of the days had been mostly the same, but just with different homework assignments.

           After Murphy had finished taking a shower that night, he realized it was already ten. As water slowly dripped off the tips of his brown hair, he grabbed his phone and texted Bellamy a quick “goodnight,” not even caring how much that made him sound like he was still Bellamy’s boyfriend. _You know, we never really broke up though._ At this realization, he sent out another text.

 **Murphy: by the way are we still dating or???** He checked his phone a few minutes later and saw two texts.

**Bellamy: night!!**

**Bellamy: I would be completely fine with that, and no I don’t have a hidden girlfriend this time, promise.**

          Murphy went to bed that night with a grin on his face and a feeling of hope filling up his entire body. He was looking forward to whatever the future would bring. Really, he was looking forward to anything as long as it involved Bellamy. He made him happy, and despite the bad he had done, Murphy still didn’t think that it made him a bad person. He had also made some shitty mistakes, but he was still telling himself every day that a few fuck-ups didn’t make you undeserving of love or affection. He had always struggled to believe it, but right now, it seemed like that was becoming a reality. Somebody loved him. He was excited for tomorrow.


	14. Halloween Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tbh I needed a chapter away from tons of drama so here's basically just Jasper and Monty adorableness on Halloween. Hope you enjoy!

Monty and Jasper were dressed up in costume, ready for what might be their last year trick-or-treating.

            “We’re sixteen, Jasper. Are we seriously still going trick-or-treating?”

            “Yes, we are. It’s free candy, and besides that, you look adorable in your costume,” He replied to shut him up. Monty shook his head and rolled his eyes as he grabbed a pillowcase so he could hold their candy. They had decided to dress up as Draco and Harry on Jasper’s suggestion. He had been rereading the Harry Potter books over the summer and realized that he kind of liked the idea of Draco and Harry possibly being a couple, but even he could admit that it would be a strange relationship.

            “Let’s just get this over with,” Monty mumbled while reaching over to hold Jasper’s hand. Jasper smiled and they started to walk out of Monty’s house, but they were both interrupted by Monty’s mom, which wasn’t necessarily unusual at this point. His mom held up her phone and told them to wait a minute so she could take a few pictures. They both faked smiles, and after the camera flashed for the fifth or sixth time, they headed out of the house waving goodbye. They ran from house to house, not caring if they ran through the neighbors’ yards in the process. _It’s just grass. It’ll grow back,_ Monty thought. They rang doorbell after doorbell while they collected copious amounts of chocolate. Monty was specifically thankful for all the Reese’s Cups that they were getting, even though Jasper would eat one every few houses.

            “Oh you’re so going to pay for that later,” Monty commented jokingly. Jasper smirked before replying “Oh really? And how exactly are you going to make me pay?” Monty blushed and rang the next doorbell before Jasper could say another word. They both looked at each other when they realized they were at Murphy’s house. They had both seen him around school a few times, but they also remembered the last time they saw him he was making out with Bellamy, the star quarterback of the football team. _For the love of god, Jasper, I swear if you say anything about that I will murder you right here._ Monty hoped that Jasper got the message and proceeded to ask Murphy “trick or treat?” with a small laugh. Murphy rolled his eyes, but smiled and gave them both a few extra pieces of candy.

            “I know I’ve seen you guys around school, and you seem pretty chill, so here’s some extra candy,” He told them.

            “Oh cool, thanks,” Jasper replied. Monty watched as a few chocolate bars fell into his pillowcase, and nodded his head in approval at him.

            “No problem. Also, nice costumes. You make a great Draco, Monty,” He complimented them. _I never expected Murphy to be a huge Harry Potter fan, too. He seems pretty cool._

            “Oh, thanks,” Monty responded. Murphy realized that a few little kids were quickly approaching, and waved both of them off, happy that neither of them had mentioned homecoming if they knew about it.

            Monty and Jasper came home about two hours later with a pillowcase a little over halfway filled up with candy. Jasper immediately dumped all of the candy onto the floor and smiled at how much candy they had gotten. Monty grabbed a pillow to sit on and they both sat on the floor and started to eat some of the candy, making sure to still leave plenty for the next few days.

            “So Monty, how exactly were you going to make me pay for eating all of those Reese’s Cups?” Jasper asked with a mischievous grin on his face. He always tried to make Monty blush, which was a near impossible task, but if he ever found a way to do it, he would use that to his advantage for a day or two just for fun.

            “Well I could just take all this candy for myself, but then knowing you, you would steal it back,” Monty replied, purposely avoiding the question. He knew that Jasper was trying to make him blush, and he was determined not to let him. _You’re not winning this time,_ he mentally declared. They had been playing this game for years now, and Monty had rarely let Jasper win it.

            “That’s probably true,” Jasper agreed, letting the game end. Monty silently cheered, knowing that he had won. He went back to eating more of his candy, but eventually his mom knocked on his door.

            “Come in!” He yelled. His mom walked in with chocolate milkshakes and a smile on her face.

            “I figured you two would want something to drink, and I figured that I was already making one for myself, so I just made these for you two.”

            “Thanks!” Jasper said, taking one of the glasses.

            “But remember, you still have school tomorrow, so make sure you’re still asleep by 10:30, okay? If either of you are impossible to wake up in the morning, then neither of you are getting any candy for a week, and I mean it,” She told them. Both of them shouted “Okay!” and returned to drinking their milkshakes.

            “Want to watch a movie before we go to sleep?” Monty suggested.

            “Sure, which one?”

            “I heard Oculus was half-decent, and they just put it on Netflix, so let’s watch that,” Monty replied, giving a shrug of his shoulders. Jasper grabbed the Xbox controller so he could turn on the movie, and sat on Monty’s bed. Monty grabbed a pillow and put it behind his back, not wanting to be leaning up against the wall. It wasn’t too terrible, but it did hurt his back a little bit after a while. Jasper did the same, and they both watched the movie with little interest. Throughout the movie they occasionally kissed each other and cuddled under blankets, making them not care how boring the movie really was. After it ended, they both decided the movie could’ve been a lot worse, and fell asleep curled up next to each other.

            “Night, Jas’. I love you,” Monty whispered.

            “Love you too, Monty,” He responded before they both drifted off to sleep, not caring that they were both still in their costumes.


	15. Studying and Texting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been so long since I've updated! I've really not had much motivation to write this recently, and I always refuse to post a chapter until I have the next one written. This chapter is kind of a nice little break, but I've got disaster and drama about to happen so yeah look forward to that I guess? Thank you for the people who have continued reading this, and I hope you enjoy! Also the huge time jump I needed to do to move things along so yeah that happened

            The next month and a half passed in repetitive dullness. Nothing was new besides what unit they were working on in history class, or how many labs they had done in chemistry class that month. Everything was at peace, or rather pushed away and ignored, right up until the few days before winter break. Clarke walked into her first bell as usual, but decided on a whim to check her phone right before the bell rang. That’s when she heard the news that Bellamy and Murphy were officially dating. Octavia and her had become good friends, and she still kept in touch with her, so when those two ended up becoming a couple, she was the first to hear.

            **Clarke: I’m so sorry to hear that O-** Clarke knew that in the past Murphy had broken Octavia’s heart, even if she was only in seventh grade at the time, and that those two still weren’t really on speaking terms. Luckily, nowadays they mainly just ignored each other, but that was getting harder to do by the day.

            **Octavia: It kind of sucks tbh. He’s always at our house, so I can’t really avoid him. Weirdly enough, he’s managed to make Bellamy happy, so I guess that’s a bonus.** Octavia continuously glanced back up at the teacher to make sure she wasn’t looking at her, and continued texting throughout class. Clarke did the same, trying to figure out what exactly had happened. She didn’t need any more drama on top of everything right now. She was overloaded with homework, and now had the added worry of finding Christmas presents for her friends. _And I have midterms for the next few days,_ she realized, only adding onto her pile of worries. Still, she wanted to make sure Octavia was okay.

            **Clarke: Yeah, I guess that’s good. Hey, you’re okay, right? I mean, if you really don’t like him then just tell Bellamy. I’m sure he’ll make sure that at least they won’t hang out at your house anymore. He really does care about you.** The bell rang to signal the start of the school day, but she didn’t put her phone away. They had also changed seats after a while, and now she was in the back corner of the classroom. _Well, being in the back does have its perks._ She tried paying attention to the lecture, but was much more focused on the current situation.

            **Octavia: I know he does, trust me. Honestly I just want there to not be so much awkwardness between me and Murphy, as weird as that sounds. I figure he’s going to end up staying with Bel’ for at least a few months, you know?**

 **Clarke: Yeah, I can understand that. Maybe just try talking a little to him? Murphy seems like the type that would only hurt those who have somehow hurt him.** She really didn’t know much about Murphy besides the fact that he had tried out for a Shakespeare play earlier that year. He had gotten a background part, but she could tell he loved every second of it when she went to go see the play with Raven a while ago.

**Octavia: Hopefully that’s the case. Anyways, I think if I’m on my phone any longer the teacher is going to snatch it right out of my hands. Talk later?**

            **Sounds good with me,** Clarke replied before putting her phone in her purse. She started to take a nap during the class, wanting to drown out the world around her for just a few hours. Usually stress made her thrive, but lately it was just restraining her like a bird trapped inside of a cage. She managed to sleep through almost the whole entire class before groggily walking to her next one, not looking forward to what seemed like a day sent up from hell itself. As usual, she got yet another assignment to add onto her pile of homework that still wasn’t finished, and she let out a long sigh as the homework worksheet was passed back to her. Clarke shoved it into her folder and wished for winter break to come sooner, despite it only being four days away. _At least then I can just finally relax and maybe drink some hot chocolate while hanging out with Raven,_ she thought. She had been getting even closer to Raven since breaking up with Bellamy, and she couldn’t tell if it was just because Raven was a great friend or because she wanted her to be more than just a friend. She figured now wasn’t the time to worry about that, and vowed to ignore any feelings she had for her until at least the first day of winter break. Right now she had other things on her mind, like passing her midterms so she wouldn’t end up getting worse grades in every class. Monty and Jasper had offered to help her study, and even though she didn’t know them that well she had accepted the offer and was going over to Monty’s after school that day. Clarke reasoned that it was better to not study with her best friend. Not that it was a bad idea, but she knew she would easily get distracted and no actual studying would end up getting done.

            After the last school bell rang, Clarke rushed out of the school building to go find Monty, or Jasper, whichever she could find first. She pulled her coat closer to her as she felt the freezing winds pelt her, and luckily found Monty within seconds.

            “Monty! Over here!” She yelled. Monty smiled and gave her a wave as he walked over to her.

            “Well, looks like we’re just waiting for Jasper now,” he commented.

            “Hopefully he’ll get out here soon. It’s freezing,” She replied. They both stood there for a few minutes until they finally spotted Jasper. Monty ran up to him and embraced him in a hug before walking back to Clarke.

            “Hey Clarke, ready for a great day of studying?” Jasper joked.

            “Well, I figure it’s either study or fail at this point, so I kind of have to,” She responded sarcastically. They all headed to Monty’s car, Clarke sitting in the backseat and Jasper riding shotgun as they drove the short distance to Monty’s house. She could hear both of them talking, but she had no idea what they were talking about. _Probably just some TV show. They’re almost always talking about some show I swear._ One time she had heard them talking about the show Friends and was able to jump into the conversation, but besides that every word they said was like a different language to her. _I guess it makes them happy though._

            They barged into Monty’s house and were all greeted with hugs from his mom, even Clarke.

            “Hi there! You must be Clarke. I’ve heard a bit about you, but all good things, I promise. Monty and Jasper said you needed some time to study, and I figured this was a great chance to meet one of their friends. Do you want something to drink?” She offered.

            “Actually, some hot chocolate would be great,” Clarke answered in a voice more soft than she usually did.

            “I’ll bring that in for you when it’s finished,” She replied. Clarke smiled at her, mumbled a quick thank you, and headed to Monty’s room. It was only upon walking in his room that she realized she had never actually been to his house before. She didn’t know what she expected, but seeing the posters covering Monty’s wall and seeing clothes scattered all over the floor almost made too much sense. _It almost feels like my room,_ she noticed. Minutes later, hot chocolate was brought to her and she started studying. Jasper ended up not being that helpful, and was just watching movies most of the time, but Monty was actually surprisingly good at figuring out ways to help her study. He helped her connect stuff she was learning back to things in modern day life.

            “So you’re saying that the cold war is basically like two guys saying that they’re better than each other and would totally win in a fight against each other, but never actually fighting?” She asked, laughing at the thought.

            “Honestly, yeah, but with more danger present and treaties signed,” He replied with a chuckle. They ended up finishing studying right around six that night, and spent an hour just relaxing and watching the end of some movie Jasper had started watching. Clarke sat on the floor, drinking her second cup of hot chocolate, while Monty and Jasper cuddled up next to each other on the bed. This put her at ease enough to finally text back Octavia. She got one or two texts from her while she was reviewing stuff for history, but decided to not actually answer until she was calmer.

            **Octavia: Hey, Clarke. Murphy’s at our house, again. Ugh he’s so annoying and I can actually hear him and Bellamy kissing. Disgusting.** Clarke rolled her eyes and had a tiny grin after reading the first text, and decided to read the second one.

            **Octavia: Also me and Murphy finally talked for the first time in probably years. He didn’t seem like he wanted to kill me, so improvement I guess? Haha. Anyways, don’t worry about me, I think I’ll be fine.** She breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that the situation would eventually work itself out, and realized that it was time for her mom to pick her up. She got a text telling her that her mom was here, and groaned internally.

            “Hey, uh, I’ve got to go you guys,” She told them.

            “Ahhh, that sucks. I hope you do well on your tests tomorrow,” Monty replied, giving her a thumbs-up. Clarke smiled and gave both of them a hug goodbye before getting in her mom’s car. _Well, at least things are going right for once, or at least hopefully they are._


	16. Breaking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First things first: Trigger warning for self-harm from this point on in the story (just in general), and I'll make sure to put that in the notes for every chapter where it's mentioned from now on.  
> Second: Sorry for taking forever to update, but now I definitely have the rest of this story planned out, which should help. Hope you enjoy!! c:

            Of course everything metaphorically went up in flames on the last day before winter break, and even sort of the first day of it. Harper wasn’t texting Octavia that much recently, and Octavia hated to admit just how much they had been drifting apart lately. She told herself it was because school was just stressful, but in reality she knew it wouldn’t last more than a few months. Octavia had nothing against Harper. She was nice, cute, and a great girlfriend, but her suspicion that Harper didn’t return romantic feelings for her was becoming less of a suspicion and more of an accepted truth by the day. She wasn’t mad about it, but she was a little disappointed. Octavia was the one to break it off between them, and she swore that she saw Harper breathe a sigh of relief as Octavia said that she only wanted to be friends with her from now on.

            However, it was still a breakup, which meant that Clarke ended up texting Octavia to make sure she was okay over focusing on her midterms. Clarke told herself it was worth it, but when she ended up getting Cs and Ds on all of her midterms besides history, she was angry at herself more than anything. To make matters worse, her plans to hang out with Raven on the first day of break got cancelled last second because Raven’s aunt and uncle had come down earlier than expected. Though Clarke wasn’t irritated with her, she was irritated in general. _Here I was a few days ago thinking everything was actually looking up for once. Guess not all dreams can come true._

Raven was angry that she was being forced to hang out with her family. She was practically the black sheep of the family, and she was constantly being told that girls shouldn’t be mechanics or go into anything related to science.

            “Oh honey, I’ve read one of your poems you wrote. You should try to go into writing instead,” Her aunt had told her on the first day of winter break.

“Yeah, maybe. I haven’t thought about it that much though.” Raven sighed and dismissed herself to her room, wanting to ignore those types of comments. She liked writing poems sometimes in her free time, but it was just a small hobby of hers. She knew that in reality she would never go into writing, but she always let her extended family believe she would think about it just to make them easier to get along with at this time of year.

Murphy had fallen back into his old bad habits that he refused to tell anybody about. It wasn’t even anything in particular that set him off, but rather just an accumulation of tiny things going wrong that whole week. He got bad grades on almost all of his midterms, Bellamy seemed to be ignoring him, his mom was getting drunk more than usual again (which worried him more than anything else), and he just couldn’t deal with all the stress and everything that seemed to be happening all at once. So when he dragged the blade that he popped out of a pencil sharpener against his skin for the first time in almost six months (he had been mentally keeping track of how long it had been), he felt both a mix of relief and guilt at the same time. _Well, guess it’s back to hiding scars again. At least I know how to do it know though,_ he thought.

The only good thing in all of this was Monty finally confessing something to Jasper that he had been figuring out and realizing for the past year. It all started when he heard the word “asexual.” He immediately started thinking about the past few months, and realized that the word asexual really seemed to describe him. He noted how it felt weird when people would say a certain celebrity was “sexy,” and pretty much despised how much people seemed to be enthralled with sex and anything with it. Monty practically cringed every time it was brought up. When he was around twelve or so, he boiled it down to him just not feeling that way yet, or that he was going through puberty a little later. By the time he hit freshman year of high school, he realized that it wasn’t just that. Monty felt like an outcast, and he didn’t like that, so he just pretended to understand what was so great and wonderful about sex. That was around the same time he started having feelings for Jasper, which only complicated things even more. Monty knew that he had a crush on Jasper, but didn’t really think he was “sexy” or that he would “do him.”  He just thought that he was attractive, and that he wanted to mess with his hair and maybe kiss him a bit. That year he had told Jasper that he had a crush on him. This year, he was ready to confess that he had figured out he was asexual. They were sitting on Monty’s bed like usual, and having a Marvel movie marathon to celebrate the first day of winter break. Monty paused the movie, and looked over to Jasper nervously.

“Hey Jas’, can I tell you something?” He asked.

“You can tell me anything,” Jasper replied, “You know that.”

“I know, but still. Promise you won’t be mad at me when I tell you this, or freak out?”

“I will try my absolute best not to, but I really can’t promise it if I don’t know what you’re going to say.”

“That’s good enough, I guess,” Monty said. He took a few deep breaths before the words “I’m asexual” rambled out of his mouth. Jasper shrugged his shoulders and responded with “so what?”

“So, you’re fine with that?”

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”

“Well, it’s just, most people really feel like sexual attraction is so important, and I mean, I guess I thought you would be like most people,” He tried to explain.

“Look, I don’t care if you think I’m sexy or not. I know that you love me, and that’s what really matters to me. Hell, if we never have sex that’s fine, or if you end up figuring out you do have any sort of sexual attraction, that’s also fine,” Jasper shrugged. Monty breathed a sigh of relief as he realized that his fears were practically for nothing.

“You’re the best,” Monty said, blushing. He gave him a quick kiss on the cheek before un-pausing the movie and cuddling up with Jasper under a blanket, finally feeling accepted.

 


	17. Christmas Break Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for mentions of self-harm!  
> I hope you enjoy this chapter, and I can already say that the next chapter is a jonty focused one, so if you like those two then look forward to that c:

            There were only two days left before winter break started. Murphy had decided to just skip school for the last two days, knowing his mom would just completely ignore the fact that he even had school. She was falling back into her old habits just as much as he had been recently, and though that worried Murphy, he had to admit that he could use it to his advantage, even if it did make him feel a bit guilty.

            He spent those last two days just watching movies and TV shows while eating a few bowls of popcorn, not caring that it was an unhealthy way to deal with his life. It’s not like he could talk to many people though. He had Monty and Jasper, but they were only acquaintances and he had really only met them a few times, so he didn’t feel comfortable enough sharing anything personal with them. Murphy had Bellamy, or at least he believed he did, but he didn’t want to text him first, worrying that it would just irritate him, and he couldn’t deal with losing the only person he could actually tell his problems to, that is if he ever worked up the courage to show what he thought was vulnerability. He had learned that emotions themselves could hurt you, but if you shared those emotions, they had the potential to destroy you. Murphy hated that he had drilled those thoughts into his head, but after experiencing people betraying him and throwing his emotions back in his face, he couldn’t let his guard down.

            Eventually days of watching TV shows and movies turned into weeks. He reminded himself that he had to eat food besides popcorn, even if he had to make it himself. This ended up in him making quite a few grilled cheese sandwiches with tomato soup, and he occasionally snacked on raspberries, knowing that he would feel even worse if he only ate junk food for the rest of their break. Murphy realized just how much he had isolated himself the day before Christmas when he was only reminded by his mom that Christmas was tomorrow. _I’ve wasted away that many days? Shit._ He made the decision to call Bellamy.

            “Murphy?” Bellamy asked when he answered his phone.

            “Hey, Bel’,” Murphy replied, letting out a sigh. He felt bad for ignoring Bellamy this whole week, but he really didn’t feel like himself, and he didn’t want Bellamy to get to know all of the bad things about him just yet.

            “Are you okay? You haven’t been answering your phone for almost a week now,” Bellamy said with worry thick in his voice.

            “I’m okay, I guess. It’s just, I’ve had a rough few days,” Murphy responded, not wanting to give away any details, and just hoping Bellamy wouldn’t ask any more questions.

            “Well, that’s nice to know your safe. So, why are you suddenly calling me now, if you don’t mind me asking.”

            Murphy took a deep breath before telling him why. “I just really don’t want to be at my house for Christmas. Let’s just say family issues. Can I stay over at your place?”

            “I’ll have to ask, but I’m sure that my parents wouldn’t mind,” Bellamy told him. He was nervous that Murphy had done something terrible, like stolen something, or had gotten into some sort of fight which landed him in the hospital, so now that he knew Murphy was safe, it was like he could finally relax again. Even Octavia had noticed how tense he was lately, and had commented on it a few times.

            “Can you ask soon? And maybe pick me up tonight actually? I can get packed up within a few minutes. I just really don’t want to be here anymore,” Murphy pleaded. He could hear his voice crack towards the end of what he was saying, and mentally scolded himself. _Don’t let him find out. You can’t let anybody close to you again._ There was silence on the phone for a minute or two; Murphy wasn’t counting, while Bellamy confirmed that Murphy could stay at his house for the rest of their break.

            “Yeah, my parents said it’s fine. Octavia isn’t the happiest in the world, but I think she’ll live,” Bellamy said with a small laugh. “I’ll be over there in about fifteen minutes, okay?”

            “Okay. I guess I’ll see you soon then,” Murphy replied before hanging up his phone. He took a few deep breaths before he started packing up everything, purposely making sure to not, under any circumstance, pack one of his blades. At least staying at Bellamy’s would prevent him from relapsing again, he figured. He quickly told his mom that he was staying there for break, and made sure to even leave a note on the fridge in case she decided to sober up over the break and worry about where he was for once. The doorbell rang a few minutes later, and Murphy opened it to a smiling Bellamy. He was immediately pulled in for a hug, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

            “I’m glad you’re okay,” was all that Bellamy said before they got in his car. The radio played on the way back to fill the silence that they had fallen into. Murphy couldn’t really stand it being too quiet, so he was grateful for music playing. The first night was mainly just Murphy trying to get settled in, and Bellamy made sure to give him plenty of space and not make him feel like he was an unwelcome guest.

            That Christmas was the best he had since his dad had still been alive, and it was mostly thanks to Bellamy, but Octavia finally treating him like he was welcomed was an added bonus, and he learned that she could actually tell some pretty good jokes at times. The best thing, however, was that he actually got a present from Bellamy. Usually his mom would just give him some money to go buy something, but he hadn’t gotten an actual present in several years. Even though Bellamy had only given him a leather jacket, it was enough to make him almost cry. Almost.

            “Thanks, Bel’,” Murphy managed to say.

            “Hey, stop stealing my nickname for him!” Octavia yelled at him with a wide grin spread across her face. Murphy smiled along with her, finally feeling at home. The rest of the break was spent just watching movies, or playing Xbox, but this time Murphy didn’t feel so lonely. When Octavia announced that she was holding a New Year’s Eve party, Murphy shrugged his shoulder and said it would be fun, despite the death glare Bellamy was giving her.

            “Oh come on, Bel’, I want to throw a party,” Octavia pleaded.

            “Just go make sure that mom’s fine with it,” Bellamy responded, rolling his eyes. Octavia had her phone out and was texting all of her friends before she had even walked out of his room, and when her mom gave her the okay, she practically screamed in excitement.

            “This is going to be so much fun!”


	18. Christmas Break Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just some cute jonty fluff because it's needed omg. The next chapter is focused on Clarke & Raven, and after that it'll be the huge New Year's Eve party, so that should be fun haha

            As usual, Jasper and Monty were hanging out during winter break. They had already had a Mario Kart playing marathon (Monty had won just barely, but when you never fall off on Rainbow Road that’s an achievement in itself), and were just trying to figure out something else to do. Monty had gotten a text from Clarke yesterday asking to hang out, and while he appreciated the offer, he had rejected it, which he was now slightly regretting due to boredom. It was Christmas Eve, and neither he nor Jasper could think of anything to do at the moment. Jasper was watching some YouTube videos, and Monty joined him for a bit, but they both grew tired of that eventually, despite how funny it was to watch people play video games and yell because of them. So now they were both lying down on Monty’s bed (which at this point practically belonged to both of them), Monty playing Robot Unicorn Attack 2 on his phone which he had taken a liking to in the past few weeks, and Jasper tapping his foot like he usually did when he was full of energy with nowhere to place it.

            “What are we gonna do?” Jasper asked.

            “I don’t knowwwww,” Monty replied while making sure to not take his eyes off his phone screen. He was right around 24,000 points already and didn’t want to screw up by being distracted for even a few seconds.

            “Do you want to build a snowman?” Jasper suggested with a laugh, just trying to think of something.

            “Yeah, that’s a great idea,” Monty responded with sarcasm thick in his voice.

            “Oh come on, it could be fun!”

            “Ugh, fine, but we’re making hot chocolate after it,” Monty agreed. He hated being freezing cold outside, but if it made Jasper happy then it was worth the cold for a bit.

            Twenty minutes later they had both thrown on two layers of socks and gloves, as well as hats and scarves in preparation for facing the snow, wind, and general cold that awaited them in their backyard. Jasper opened the front door and ran into the snow, sticking out his tongue like he was suddenly ten years old again and everything was wonderful and happy and nothing was ever wrong. Monty grinned at how happy his dork of a boyfriend looked at the moment, and took a few steps outside of the front door before closing it so it wouldn’t be cold inside.

            “Hey, come help me build this thing!” Jasper yelled as he started rolling the snow into what would be the bottom of the snowman, trying not to accidentally trip like he almost always did when it was icy outside.

            “I’m coming!” Monty shouted back as he walked through the snow, footprints leaving deep marks in what seemed to be a few inches of snow. He felt his shoes getting wet, as well as at least one pair of socks he through on, but he didn’t care as he began rolling snow into another sphere. Since Monty finished before Jasper, he also found plenty of snow to roll into the head of their snowman. A few minutes later and their snowman was built, even though it didn’t have a face or arms or anything of the sort, which Jasper pointed out within seconds.

            “Oh come on! We have to give it a face,” He said.

            “Fine. What are we going to use though?”

            “Well, we can just use branches for arms, obviously. Maybe some rocks for the eyes, I think we have a bag of carrots in the fridge, and we can use… tinier rocks for the mouth,” Jasper concluded. Monty ran inside to get the carrots, wanting an excuse to warm up for a few seconds, and grabbed his phone so they could take pictures before it could have the chance to melt. He stepped back outside to find that Jasper had already given their snowman arms and a scarf.

            “You get the carrots?” He asked while digging through snow to try finding some rocks they could use.

            “Got ‘em right here,” Monty replied, pointing to the bag of carrots he was holding up. Jasper smiled, and held up two rocks he had found. They both carefully put both the eyes and nose on their snowman, making sure to not let the head of the snowman fall off in the process, and both of them managed to find enough rocks to make the mouth within a few minutes, therefore ending their snowman making.

            “It looks great,” Jasper commented. Monty leaned his head on Jasper’s shoulder while agreeing that it did indeed look amazing.

            “I brought my phone out if you want a picture of it,” Monty told him. Jasper grabbed Monty’s phone and started taking a few pictures of their snowman, fully preparing to send all the pictures to his phone the second they got inside.

            “Monty, get next to the snowman! I’m taking a picture of you two.” Monty stood next to the snowman with a small smile on his face, making a peace sign behind the snowman because why not? Jasper snapped the picture quickly, and then stood next to the snowman himself and started taking selfies, which Monty was also in. Eventually Monty’s fingers started going numb, and they both went inside, satisfied with their work. They both threw their gloves, socks, and everything else that was soaked besides shirts and pants on the floor of Monty’s bedroom, and Monty went to the kitchen to make hot chocolate to warm himself up. The smell of chocolate flowed through the kitchen, and with it still snowing in the background, he felt a hint of nostalgia reawaken in him, which lead to both him and Jasper also having a Harry Potter marathon later that night. They ended up falling asleep under two or three blankets sometime into the fifth movie while cuddled up next to each other.

            Being waken up on Christmas morning to the smell of chocolate chip muffins and bacon cooking was a happy surprise. As usual, they both opened their stockings first, and presents later that day. It was a day of joy and chocolate eating, and both of them were just glad that they were together for it. Later that night, Jasper got a text from Octavia about a New Year’s Eve party, and after asking Monty, they both decided that it would be fun to go to, so Jasper texted her back a quick yes before returning to watching the last three Harry Potter movies that him and Monty hadn’t finished the night before, while they both hoped that they wouldn’t fall asleep this time. Although they eventually did, luckily it was just a few seconds after the last movie, and they both dozed off to sleep with small grins on their faces.


	19. Christmas Break Part 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can actually feel Princess Mechanic getting close to canon in this chapter whoops. Also this is the last of the "Christmas Break" parts by specific pairings. The New Year's Eve party (which I've been dropping into the past few chapters) is the next chapter so yeah that's cool.  
> PS I changed the way I wrote out text messages between characters a few chapters ago so it's a bit easier to tell what's what, hope you don't mind!

            Raven and Clarke had both had decent, but sort of boring Christmas days. Raven’s family was still over, and while they gave her nice presents, the best present was that nobody in her family was drunk or complaining that day. Luckily for both of them, they had decided to hang out the day after Christmas to cure themselves of boredom. Raven was currently texting Monroe, and felt bad that she had forgotten to talk to her recently, but she had so much on her mind, especially the thought that she might have a crush on Clarke. She couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment she figured out, but she had realized sometime right around homecoming.

            **Raven: Hey Monroe!! How was your Christmas?**

**** **Monroe: Not too bad. I got tons of chocolate, which was nice.**

**Raven: Well that definitely sounds good.** It felt weird just making small talk, but it wasn’t like she could just immediately text Monroe for relationship advice without at least talking to her a little bit first. She was going to ask Monty or Jasper for help, but she figured that both of them were probably busy playing video games, and that she wasn’t that close to them anyways.

            **Monroe: It is! How was your Christmas, btw?**

 **Raven: Surprisingly good actually. I mean, the presents weren’t the best ever, but none of my family was yelling for once, so that was a nice pace of change.** Raven looked over to Clarke, who was still on her laptop working on some homework that she had over break. Clarke was dedicated to getting a little bit of work done every day, and Raven being over, while it distracted her, didn’t make her stop working that quickly. If anything, Raven being over at her house made her focus more on the homework so that she could try to block out the feelings she was still having for her. She knew it wasn’t a bad thing, but they had been friends for so long that she didn’t want to tell her in case it destroyed their friendship. Raven’s phone vibrated, and she read the text that Monroe had sent her back.

            **Monroe: I’m glad that you had a good Christmas, yo**

**** **Raven: You too. By the way, we totally need to hang out sometime soon. Also sorry for ignoring you a little bit recently, i’ve had a lot on my mind**

**Monroe: Don’t worry about it. Anything you want to talk about?** Monroe replied. She had always been there for Raven, even when things got rough, and she wasn’t going to stop being there for her now. She started messing with her hair, putting a small strand into a quick braid while waiting for Raven’s response.

            **Raven: Well see, the problem is I kinda have a crush on one of my best friends and really don’t know how to tell her,** she admitted, making sure Clarke wasn’t looking at her, knowing that if she was that she would see the worry on her face which she didn’t want to explain.

            **Monroe: I’m definitely assuming this isn’t about me haha. And just tell her because it’s only going to get worse if you don’t. Trust me on that,** she texted back. She knew about hiding some secrets in the past because she was afraid to tell people. More specifically, the fact that she was genderfluid, and really hated the name that was given to her at birth. Monroe hated the fact that her parents had chosen the name Hannah for her at birth, because it sounded way too girly for her liking. So Monroe decided to just go by her middle name from then on, and only told a few people about it at first. Eventually she told her parents, and while they didn’t take it the best (they were thrilled that Monroe was still using she/her pronouns because they said it would be “so much work” to use other ones), they said they still accepted her for who she was, and promised to try using her chosen name from now on, and they had for the most part, although at first they had slipped up a few times, but Monroe could handle that.

            **Raven: Thanks, Monroe. Now the question is how I’m going to tell her ughhhh**

**** **Monroe: Well you could always just kiss her out of nowhere lol. Okay that’s actually a bad idea don’t do that omg**

**Raven: Didn’t plan on it, haha** , she responded. She looked up and realized that Clarke was finally off of her computer. She grinned slightly and texted Monroe that she would text her later tonight, but that she was hanging out with her crush at the moment.

            **Monroe: Good luck!!**

 **Raven: Thanks yo!!,** she texted back with a smile before putting her phone on top of Clarke’s dresser which was right next to her bed. She let out a sigh, and started complaining about how bored she was.

            “What do you want me to dooooo?” Clarke asked with a small laugh.

            “I don’t knowwwww,” Raven whined. Clarke rolled her eyes and turned on the TV so she could turn on Netflix before sitting down on her bed. She figured there had to be _something_ on there.

            “Well, we could always try to find something to watch on Netflix,” Clarke suggested. _Or we could totally just make out right now,_ she thought. _Okay calm down Clarke seriously she isn’t into you that way,_ she mentally scolded herself. She knew in theory it was possible, but she couldn’t believe it just yet. They ended up deciding to watch some show called The 100, and ended up loving it by the time they were four episodes in.

            “Okay let’s be real that blonde girl is attractive,” Raven said after they took a small break to go make a bowl of microwave popcorn and grab cans of pop.

            “While that’s true, the girl with the dark brown hair is way more attractive,” Clarke replied. _Wait, are we flirting right now?_ Raven shrugged her shoulders and gave her a smile before pouring butter on top of the popcorn. They headed back to their room to finish up another episode or two, and Clarke ended up getting a text this time.

            **_-Hey Clarke! Want to come to my New Year’s Eve party? I know, Bellamy’s going to be there and it might be a little bit awkward, but I’m inviting plenty of people so don’t worry about that._**

            Clarke looked at the text for a few seconds, and thought of all the possibilities. _Maybe I could kiss Raven at midnight like every cliché movie ever. You know, I wonder who else is going to be there. Are Monty and Jasper going to bring their weed brownies? Those always make for an interesting party. But what if I eat one on accident? Whatever I’m sure I’ll be fine, I need to stop over thinking this._ She asked Raven if she wanted to go, and when she said yes, that’s what she told Octavia.

            **Clarke: Yeah, I’ll come. It’ll be good to see you!**

**** **Octavia: Awesome! Party starts at my house at seven, and you know where my house is so yeah.**

_Well, hopefully this party will be fun,_ Clarke thought before resuming her Netflix marathon, Raven sitting just a bit closer to her than usual.


	20. The Party

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tbh this may be my favorite chapter I've written so far, and princess mechanic just flowed so naturally and so I made it canon in this chapter and uh yeah go ahead and enjoy this!!

            Ultraviolet lights illuminated the otherwise plain grey basement floor. Neon had been splattered everywhere (Octavia had assured her mom that the paint was only temporary and easy to wash off the walls) in preparation for what was to be the, as Octavia quoted, “the best fucking party this school has ever seen!” Snack bowls were filled up with chips and candy, and the alcohol had been locked up earlier, although Bellamy noted that somebody would definitely bring some anyways, which Octavia couldn’t deny. Even Murphy had helped set up the party and made sure that all the controllers had working batteries, and that there was a whole pack for backup. Octavia was currently sitting on the worn-in couch on the basement, just waiting for the next five minutes to pass before people might finally start arriving.

            Minutes ticked away and by 8 she finally heard a knock at the door and sprang up out of her spot on the couch to run to the door. She was greeted with a group hug by a smiling Clarke and Raven.

            “Hey!” Octavia grinned.

            “Hey, O!” Raven replied.

            People kept filing themselves into the Blake’s house one after another until finally everybody was there. Octavia didn’t even bother counting how many people showed up, but figured it was around fifty or so in total. The music was turned on and up loud as it could go, and in the corner of the basement Murphy, Miller, Monty, and Jasper were all currently in the middle of a Mario Kart marathon, which was noticeable by the way they were cursing loudly every time one of them got hit with yet another blue shell. Octavia spotted Harper out of the corner of her eye, who was currently chatting with Monroe, and smiled to herself before slowly walking up to them.

            “Hey, Harper.”

            “Oh, hey O’. What’s up?” Harper asked

            “Nothing really, just enjoying the party and hoping that nobody has brought alcohol yet,” Octavia told her with a laugh.

            “Well I would definitely not go anywhere near Miller then,” She said, “but don’t worry, he’s got it well hidden and doesn’t share so I think you’ll be safe.”

            “I guess that’s good then. Hey, do you two want to maybe hang out sometime soon? We could go to the mall and walk around or something,” Octavia suggested.

            “I wouldn’t mind at all,” Monroe chimed in, “Anything to get me out of the house. I can only take so much Netflix before I want to scream.”

            “It’s a plan, then!” Octavia exclaimed with a grin before deciding to dance along with a few other people at the party. Uptown Funk was playing, and as much as she felt weird dancing at times, the song was too good not to dance to. The slight tinge of sweat surrounded her, causing her to scrunch up her nose in disgust. _Okay, who forgot to bring deodorant?_ She wondered. Despite the smell, she still danced around, trying not to press her body up against anybody else. Octavia was fine with touching people, but if she barely knew them then it was awkward and uncomfortable and made her want to curl up into a ball for a few hours after. The night flew by as quickly as the beat of every song for Octavia, but for Raven and Clarke it ticked as slow as seconds on a clock.

            Clarke nervously twirled her hair around the tips of her slightly bitten fingernails. Her nervous habits usually weren’t displayed, but when it came to her actually maybe falling in love, they were impossible to hide. She realized that yeah, she did sort of fall in love with Raven and she couldn’t help it at all and that even though it may not seem like a big deal to everybody else, to her it was and she really just needed to tell her already. _Just tell her, it’ll be fine._ She took in a deep breath and let it out as slowly as possible. _But what if it isn’t fine?_ She sighed. _Come on, you’ve got this._ Clarke gulped. Even though the music was ear-deafening loud, she swore that at the moment all she could hear was the rush of her heart beating.

            “Hey Raven, do you want to go upstairs really quick? I could use a break from the music,” Clarke asked, looking for any excuse to talk to Raven without twenty people surrounding her.

            “Sounds fine with me!” Raven shouted. They walked up the stairs, hearing the wood creek ever so slightly with every step they took.

            Both of them went into Octavia’s room and collapsed on her bed, finally able to relax and take a break for the first time in the whole party. Raven lied her head down on one of the many pillows on Octavia’s bed, and turned her body so she could be facing Clarke, who currently had the most nervous look she had ever seen from her in her whole entire life.

            “Okay, what’s up?”

            “Huh?” Clarke asked, raising her eyebrows in confusion. Raven rolled her eyes.

            “You’ve never looked this nervous before in your life. Spill,” She demanded. Clarke couldn’t figure out any words to say and only managed to stare at her even more.

            “Uh,” Clarke attempted to try saying something, anything, which would possibly make the conversation less terrifying than it was at the moment.

            “Let me guess, you’ve got a crush on somebody at this party and are too nervous to just tell me who this mystery person is?” Raven stated as more of a fact than a question. Clarke’s jaw dropped and a stunned silence took over the room. “So, I’m guessing that’s a yeah?”

            “Uh, yeah,” Clarke managed to respond. Raven couldn’t help but give her a small smile. _Wait, does Clarke actually like me?_

            “So, who is it?” Raven tried to hide her own anticipation. _If it’s actually me, I’m going to scream,_ she mentally decided. Clarke started to blush, wondering if she should finally just tell Raven. However, seconds later Monty barged into the room, obviously at least slightly drunk, with Jasper following behind him.

            “Oh god, I’m so sorry!” Jasper furiously apologized. “I was trying to find a place for him to lie down and I didn’t see you two in here,” He explained.

            “It’s fine,” Clarke assured him, “I would just put him in the guest bedroom,” She told him.

            “Thanks, Clarke!” Jasper shouted as he walked out of the bedroom, his fingers intertwined with Monty’s. Clarke couldn’t help but let a small frown cross her face.

            “Why the frown?”

            “I just wish I could actually be in a relationship with the girl I have a crush on, you know?” Clarke replied. Raven’s eyes widened at the word girl, finally believing that there was actually a chance that Clarke was in love with her, of all people.

            “I know the exact feeling,” Raven responded.

            “Wait, you do? Who do you have a crush on?” The question rushed out of Clarke’s mouth within a matter of seconds. Nervous laughter threatened to creep out of Raven’s lips.

            “Well, she has pretty blonde hair, and her name may or may not start with the letter C, and uh,” Raven paused for a few seconds, “And it might be you.” Raven’s could feel her heart dropping with each split second that passed before Clarke smiled and started laughing.

            “So we’ve both had a crush on each other for a while now and haven’t told each other? You’ve got to be kidding me,” She managed to get out between her laughter.

            Hours later, people started counting down the seconds until midnight. Well, except for Murphy and Bellamy, who were already kissing in a corner, Murphy sticking up both of his middle fingers, not caring what people thought at this point.

            “TEN!” Octavia shouted with a wide smile plastered on her face.

            “NINE!” Monroe and Harper followed with.

            “EIGHT!” Jasper yelled. Monty would’ve joined, but he fell asleep forever ago. Luckily, Jasper and Miller were both chill with each other, so he had him to hang out with (and yes, Miller did actually share alcohol with a few people, despite what Harper said).

            “SEVEN!” Was yelled from somebody across the room who nobody really knew that well. Octavia had heard from two people that his name was Sterling.

            “SIX!” Murphy yelled out, giving Bellamy a smirk as they stopped their kiss for a second.

            “FIVE!” Bellamy yelled next, sticking his tongue out at his boyfriend.

            “FOUR!” Miller yelled in an exhausted voice. He had been dancing for the past half hour or so, and that combined with drinking wasn’t the best way to stay fully alert.

            “THREE!” Raven continued.

            “TWO!” Clarke shouted. Two had always been her lucky number. She had been in love with Raven for two months, and had been friends with her for two years, so she assumed that wasn’t a coincidence.

            “ONE!” Everyone yelled in unison as Clarke pressed a kiss to Raven’s lips, not being able to stop smiling. Some people went back to dancing, some back to playing video games, some snacking on whatever chips were left. However, some lucky people were kissing each other right now, and some of those people were finally kissing for the first time.

            “Well, Octavia was definitely right when she said this would be the best party ever,” Raven commented when she pulled away from their kiss for a second, needing to catch her breath. Clarke threw back her head in laughter, not wanting this moment to ever end.

           


	21. Mall Trips Are Fun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick filler chapter of happiness before the really sad next one lmao. I just wanted to write more about Harper, Monroe, and Octavia so here you go, and I hope you enjoy it!!

            Octavia, Harper, and Monroe all ended up hanging out at the mall a few days after the spectacular New Year’s Eve party as they planned, which also happened to be the last day before going back to school, much to everyone’s despair. Octavia had brought some money to buy late Christmas presents for Clarke, and Harper and Monroe were just glad to be out of their houses for a bit. Neither could stand being inside for all of winter break, even if it was freezing cold outside and TV shows were fairly entertaining to watch.

            “I’m just going to run into Wet Seal really quick to see if I can find a necklace or something for Clarke. You guys want to come with?” Octavia asked as she threw her now empty cup of Starbucks into the trash can right next to the booth in the food court they were sitting at.

            “Sure!” Harper responded. Monroe grabbed her hand and followed her along to Wet Seal.

            Immediately a worker stopped them, asking if they needed help finding anything to which Octavia faked a smile and replied with a quick “no, we’re just looking.” She searched through the small display of necklaces and bracelets, trying to find something to match Clarke’s current aesthetic, which seemed to be nearly impossible to describe but cute none the less. She quickly decided that anything with the color orange or yellow wouldn’t work, and that anything gold probably also wouldn’t fit, which dramatically reduced the possibility of finding something.

            “Hey O’, I think I might have found something,” Monroe said.

            “What is it?”

            “Well come over here and look,” She replied with a small smile. Octavia’s eyes lit up with hope as she saw the headband Monroe had picked out. It had a small, light purple flower on it and the base was the perfect pale green with white lace on top. She grabbed it out of Monroe’s hands, knowing that it would be perfect. Letting out a sigh of relief, Octavia bought the headband, not even caring at this point that it was twenty dollars, and left the store happy.

            “Hey, I heard there’s a comic book store somewhere in the mall, want to go check that out?” Monroe suggested, eager to go see just how big this store actually was.

            “Sounds good with me,” Octavia said, “Any idea where it is exactly?”

            “I know it’s on the second floor, but no idea beyond that to be honest.”

            “Second floor it is then,” Octavia stated, already walking towards the nearest escalator.

            The slight scent of new comic books surrounded them as they stepped foot into the store. They noticed the distinctly new paint, made obvious by how vibrant the colors still were, as well as the huge amounts of comics in plastic bins on top of tables. Posters were hanging up, showcasing movies and shows both new and old, and it couldn’t feel more like home to Monroe if she tried. She started to fast-walk around the store, starting to shuffle through comics, taking note that there were indeed a good amount of Black Widow comics around, and nearly squealed with joy upon finding one for Young Avengers. She had always been a huge Marvel fan, although she did enjoy some DC comics as well, especially ones with Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy. In all honesty, she just couldn’t resist well written female characters, which both DC and Marvel had, and is why Monroe never really understood the war between the fans over which was better. She decided to look at the posters while she was at it, and managed to find one for this show she loved that was called The 100, and immediately bought it, grateful that she had brought a little bit of money along in case she did want to buy something. After leaving the comic book store, they were all ready to leave the mall, pleased with everything they bought that day. Octavia took her phone out of her jean pocket to text Clarke, while Harper drove all of them to get some food.

            **Octavia: Hey Clarke, got you your Christmas present!! I’ll give it to you at school tomorrow**

**** **Clarke: Awesome! I can’t wait to see what it is yo**

**** **Octavia: I’m sure you’ll love it. Anyway, i’m hanging out with Monroe and Harper right now, so text u later**

**** **Clarke: Sounds good, and have fun**

Slipping her phone back into her pocket and turning up the radio, Octavia grinned despite the fact that the car hadn’t fully heated up yet. She rubbed her hands together, trying to create some sort of heat, angry at herself that she forgot to bring a hat to wear. It had been snowing tons in the past week, and didn’t seem like it would let up anytime soon. Octavia didn’t hate winter, but she did hate the cold that came along with it. Luckily, the place they were eating at was only about five minutes away from the mall, which was definitely a perk of living in Cincinnati, and in reality was one of the only ones. The weather was changing as fast as some relationships were, and never in a great or amazing way. Still, the change was the only thing she knew was constant, both in the weather and in her life.

            After eating, Harper drove Octavia back to her house, giving her a short hug before she walked in the doors of her house. She waved goodbye, and Monroe jumped in the front seat of the car with a smile on her face. She leaned back in the front seat, changing the radio to some alternative station, and only turning it down when Harper started to talk to her.

            “Okay so I saw that you bought a poster for The 100 today and I didn’t actually know you liked that show until now, but I also love it so much omg,” Harper said.

            “I love it so much! I hate how they left it on a cliffhanger though and now we have to wait forever for the next season,” Monroe replied, this chat coming naturally to her. She had gone on the same rant for weeks now on the internet, and she could talk about the show for hours on end if allowed.

            “I know! That cliffhanger was terrible and now I’m wondering which characters will get together, and also what they’re going to do about the whole thing with this new alie person and ughh,” Harper sighed.

            “Right like you can’t just end it like that seriously what were they thinking?” Monroe rhetorically asked, the smile on her face growing wider by the second. She and Harper had always talked about the newest movie out, and some music they both liked, but since both of them were always watching tons of different shows, they just never brought up which TV shows they were watching recently.

            “Exactly! Oh, uh, it looks like we’re at your house,” Harper replied with a small frown. She put her car in park and walked Monroe up to the door, giving her a huge hug before saying a quick goodbye, hating that they couldn’t have a sleepover because tomorrow was a school day.

            “See you tomorrow!” Monroe yelled as Harper hopped back into her car. Harper gave her a grin as she drove away, filled to the brim with joy that today was a great celebration of the last day of winter break.


	22. Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, sorry for not updating this in forever i've been lazy af not even gonna lie haha. Second, trigger warning for mentions of self-hatred and mentions of abusive behaviors (nothing that explicit i promise, but if that stuff triggers you then i would just skip this chapter and here's a brief summary of what you need to know: murphy runs away from his home and is now going to live with bellamy for the time being). Third, the next chapter is going to be about Jasper and Monty, and I'm introducing a certain character not yet mentioned in this story (ooooooh fun). Fourth, I hope you enjoy this!!

            Eventually the party of winter break ended and Murphy was yet again at his house. He couldn’t consider it a home, but he was at his house now and that meant everything wouldn’t be okay. The note he left for his mother was still on the fridge, which he realized the second he opened it to grab something to drink. His mother was in her room, seemingly hung-over. She yelled at him to turn the music down because she had a headache, so he turned it up again, trying to pretend that he was anywhere but his house. He locked the door so his mother couldn’t barge in like she usually did, and flopped onto his bed. Breathing in the air felt nearly toxic, so he opened up a window to try creating the illusion of fresh air and cleanliness, not that it actually worked. Murphy decided to take a nap, hoping that maybe his escape from reality would brighten up his day.

            It didn’t. He woke up to his mother knocking furiously at the door, demanding him to open it. He almost laughed at how desperate she seemed, but opened the door anyway, bracing himself for the yelling he knew he was about to endure.

            “Jonathon Murphy, where the hell were you these last few days?” She asked, her voice trembling out of either worry or hatred, although Murphy couldn’t tell which it actually was.

            “At Bellamy’s! There was a note I left on the fridge for you,” Murphy stated, trying not to let his voice get as loud as hers was.

            “You could’ve told me _before_ you left!” She screamed back, obviously too drunk to recall that he did in fact tell her.

            “I did! Maybe if you weren’t so drunk right now you would actually remember!” He yelled, knowing that he had crossed a line, but not caring one bit.

            She started yelling any curse words she could think at him, calling him stupid and worthless and any other insult he already flung at himself on a daily basis. He slammed the door shut and locked it, and started packing a bag. He told himself he was going to run away, or at least go to Bellamy’s. Maybe this time he would finally call the cops on his mother. Maybe this time he would tell them that she was a terrible person and completely neglected him every day. Maybe he would tell the cops that he already had a place to stay and wanted to stay anywhere but his own house. He knew he wouldn’t though, and that’s what irritated him most. Murphy was too afraid to do it. In all honesty, Murphy wanted to call the cops to just get his mom some help, but he knew they were too poor and neither of them could afford to get treatment, or therapy, or really anything that could improve their lives.

            “Jonathon, open up the damn door!” His mother screamed as he zipped his bag shut. Murphy gulped nervously, keeping the door locked just to see what would happen. His mother kept banging her fists against the door, not seeming like she was going to give up any time soon. _Maybe her knuckles will get bloody soon and she’ll have to stop,_ he hoped to himself. Murphy swore he heard wood starting to crack as he opened his window, thankful that their house only had one floor. After making sure his blades were in his bag, he crawled out the window, hoping the noise of his music would distract her for another few minutes. He figured leaving his laptop was a small price to pay for at least a few hours of freedom.

            After he was down the street and out of his mother’s view, he called the only person he could depend on: Bellamy.

            “Hey, uh, I know this sounds crazy and I know it’s ten on a school night and all and I really shouldn’t be calling but I can’t stay at my house anymore,” Murphy explained between sobs that escaped every few seconds.

            “Fuck, Murphy, what’s wrong?” Bellamy asked, trying to calm him down as much as he could.

            “It’s my mom. She’s drunk again and I’m too afraid she’s going to hit me or something but I’m also too afraid to call the cops on her and I need a place to stay tonight.”

            “So technically you’re running away?”

            “I know, it’s really shitty of me to do this to you and I’m terrible for doing so but I turn eighteen tomorrow anyways so as long as she doesn’t call the cops on me within the next few hours then I’m good,” Murphy told him, finally happy about his birthday for once.

            “Calm down, you’re fine. I’ll come over to get you right now. I’m assuming you’re at the corner of your street?”

            “Yeah. I ran so my mom couldn’t catch me.”

            “I’ll be there in ten minutes, don’t worry,” Bellamy assured him.

            Ten minutes ticked by slow as molasses, Murphy worrying through each of them. He kept looking at his phone, begging time to move faster while praying that his mother wouldn’t realize that he ran. He knew it was a terrible thing to wish, but he wished that his mother would be drunk enough to not care about anything at the moment. As Bellamy’s car pulled up on the corner, Murphy couldn’t help but sob tears of joy as he ran into Bellamy’s arms for a much needed hug.

            “Oh thank god you’re here,” Murphy said, letting out a sob.

            “Let’s just get you to my house,” Bellamy replied with a small grin on his face.

            As Bellamy drove them back to his house, Murphy couldn’t help but smile. He knew that eventually he would sneak back and get everything else in his room, and grab more clothes than just enough to last a few days. He would grab his laptop too, and books, and everything he had left in what used to be his room. But for now, he was finally going home, and he couldn’t be more filled with joy if he tried.


	23. Crescendo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i introduced maya ayyyyyyyy (also yes i know i haven't updated in forever omg). also this chapter is partially influenced by my own high school orchestra experiences and yes there's definitely some music terms in here that you might have to end up google-ing (or just ask what they mean in the comments if you want to know). next chapter is... a murphy one ayyyy. anyways, hope you enjoy this chapter, and feel free to leave a comment if you liked it!!

            They walked into the school orchestra room to the sound of what was quite possibly the most beautiful thing they had heard in their entire existence. The girl must’ve came in a little early (probably a transfer student), and was currently practicing a piece of music. The notes rang off the strings of her cello in perfect tune, and she shifted her hand with such ease it almost seemed unreal. The sweet sound of well done vibrato (in third position at that) filled the near empty room as she drew out each half note she played, using almost all of her bow while doing so. Every staccato note was punctuated perfectly, and each crescendo she played only served to highlight the beauty of the song, and not just make it sound needlessly loud like it sometimes did. Monty and Jasper were both fixated on her playing, amazed that they finally had a good cello player in the school orchestra.

            After grabbing their violas and making sure they weren’t too out of tune, Monty and Jasper took their seats in the front row of their school’s orchestra (being the only two viola players did have its perks), sighing as the teacher came out of her office to start the class. Monty and Jasper both had been annoyed with this teacher since the first day they had started high school, but they liked playing music and it was an easy grade, so they had put up with her, even when she had planned their orchestra concert on the day of homecoming during their freshman year (they both ended up having half an hour to get ready. It was hell).

            “Alright students, as you’re probably well aware by now, we have a new student!” She stated, gesturing towards the girl. “Would you like to introduce yourself?”

            “Uh, sure,” She stood up, a nervous smile on her face, “My name is Maya, and I’ve been playing the cello since I was eleven. I just came here from Ark High School, and I’m happy I could still stay in orchestra,” She finished while sitting back down in her chair.

            “Well, I hope you do enjoy the rest of your year here at Mount Weather High School,” the teacher replied before telling everybody to tune up.

            After making sure everybody was in tune, they were told to take out Carol of the Bells. Monty groaned quietly, irritated that they were playing this song yet again. _We literally played this song the whole entire week before winter break. Why the hell are we playing this again?_ Jasper opened his binder of music, sighing loudly as he did so. Their holiday concert was in two weeks from now, and for some reason the teacher decided that the song she wanted to practice most was Carol of the Bells, which she had already made them play last year, but just a different version of it. In fact, Monty was almost certain that every year since he joined orchestra in seventh grade, that they had played a different version of Carol of the Bells, and was growing more irritated by the year about it. _It’s not even that great. It’s just the same thing repeated three thousand times for the violas I swear to god,_ were his usual thoughts about the song. Still, they had to play it again.

            The teacher started conducting the song, and the sound of music took over the room. Out of tune notes were still being played quietly, and Jasper looked over to see one of the ten violin players texting on their phone in the back row, obviously bored with this class. Though the music wasn’t great, it wasn’t until somebody got off rhythm (again), that the teacher actually stopped the orchestra from playing.

            “Alright, looks like we’re going to have to clap this rhythm again, violins,” She stated, glaring at the section as a whole. Monty couldn’t help but smirk, glad that he didn’t ever play violin. The teacher never took notice if the violas were messing up somehow, but if even one violin player played an f natural where it was supposed to be an f sharp, they would go over that measure for five minutes until it sounded perfect. However, the downside to this was that they seemed to never get through a whole entire song until they had played it in class for two weeks. In fact, last year, one of the songs they never played all the way through until during the concert. Obviously this was a catastrophe, and everybody was getting lost, and the teacher had learned to give out a little less music so that this mistake wouldn’t be repeated. So far, it hadn’t been.

            “Okay, let’s start at measure thirty,” was what brought Monty back to attention from almost falling asleep. He picked up his bow, and started playing whole notes that seemed to drag on for eternity, jealous that every other section seemed to have a more interesting part than he and Jasper. Jasper started purposely playing louder than needed, just to piss off the teacher, and Monty had to hold back laughter while he continued to play on at a mezzo-forte volume. Monty could hear the violins rushing through their eighth notes, and hoped that the teacher wouldn’t stop them for the second time today. Luckily, they actually managed to finish the song for once, and with three minutes to go before the bell rang.

            “Alright! Time to pack up! Make sure to take your instruments home and practice tonight,” was all the teacher said before she went back to her office again. Monty and Jasper both rushed to pack up, annoyed that they only had three minutes to put away their music, instruments, and put up their chairs and stand. They finished with twenty seconds to spare, and both went over to introduce themselves to Maya.

            “Hi, Maya! I’m Monty, and this is Jasper,” He said, slightly out of breath.

            “Hi! Nice to meet you two,” She responded as the bell rang.

            “You too! Hopefully we can talk more tomorrow,” Jasper replied while they walked out of the door, Monty following beside him. They both walked to their next class together, hoping the rest of the day would get even better.


	24. Comfort

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for mentions of self-harm (nothing explicit but there's a line so i'd rather be safe)  
> ayyyyy so i finally updated this (i know it's been months but i've had a huge writer's block recently tbh) and it's yet another Bellamy and Murphy chapter because i just really love writing murphy honestly. Next chapter is going to be another Jasper and Monty one, but after that it's going to be Clarke and Raven I swear (and after that probably one with the main focus on Octavia and it will be full of the women i've introduced in this story). Anyways, I hope you enjoy this update!! It would also mean tons to me if you left comments (seriously they make my day), but I'm just happy to have people reading this still tbh

            Murphy was finally settled into Bellamy’s house. It had taken three trips back in the middle of the night when he knew his mother would be too drunk to notice anything, but eventually Murphy had moved his stuff over to Bellamy’s house for good. Aurora had welcomed him in like he was her own son, and for that he couldn’t have been more grateful in his life. It felt weird to him to actually have a place to call home for once, and he was going to cherish that feeling for as long as possible. Even Octavia had warmed up to him, and they usually ended up playing Mortal Kombat once or twice a week (Octavia’s favorite character to fight with was Kitana, and she won nine out of ten times). In fact, that was the game they had been playing when Octavia had mentioned the spring fling dance.

            “Hey Murphy, did you hear about the dance two weeks from now?”

            “There’s a dance two weeks from now?”

            “Yep! I think I might end up going just so I can buy another cute dress to be honest. That, and it’s on Valentine’s Day so at least I won’t be stuck at home alone just watching something on Netflix all night” She had let out a small laugh at that comment, and at the same time had managed to win yet another round of the fight. She had raised her Xbox controller up in victory while smiling.

            “I guess I’ll go if Bellamy decides to ask me,” Murphy had said before demanding yet another rematch. They had played until they were told to go to sleep; to which both of them had sighed and had begged for just one more fight.

            Exactly one week had passed since that conversation. In that week, Bellamy had decided he was going to ask Murphy to the dance, and had enlisted the help of Octavia for his plan, which admittedly wasn’t that great. He had decided to just buy a cake and write “will you go to the dance with me” on it, and Octavia was pretty much only there to film his reaction (she had been promised half the cake to herself if she kept it a secret). However, the cake had been bought, and Octavia ended up finishing writing the question on it (Bellamy had tried and failed miserably) only seconds before Murphy got back from grabbing them dinner.

            “Bellamy, I’m back!” He yelled as he walked in the door, grabbing the change from his pocket to give back to Aurora (she would’ve gotten dinner herself, but Bellamy needed Murphy out of the house for a little bit and had told his mom the plan, who was completely on bored and gave Murphy the money to go buy them pizza). Bellamy walked to the front door, giving Murphy a quick kiss on the cheek before helping him carry in the pizza. As they walked into the kitchen, Octavia got out her phone and started recording. Bellamy told Murphy to come over to the kitchen table, Murphy obviously confused, but he just shrugged and went along with it.

            His eyes lit up with happiness the moment he saw the cake, and immediately said that yes, he would definitely go to the dance with Bellamy.

            “Of course I’ll go with you! You’re the best boyfriend ever,” He exclaimed, a huge smile spreading across his face. Octavia couldn’t help but giggle as she finished recording the scene that had just played out in front of her. Aurora came out seconds later, also wanting to see Murphy’s reaction.

            “So, I’m guessing he said yes then?” Aurora asked, already knowing the answer just by the looks on everybody’s faces. “Alright, so yes then. Let’s eat though before this gets cold!”

            They spent that night eating pizza in between stories about their days, as well as tons of bad puns and all of them swearing that they could beat one another in Mario Kart, which had ended up leading to all of them playing Mario Kart after dinner that night. Weirdly enough, Aurora had ended up being the best.

            “I’ve been playing Mario Kart since before you were even born. Obviously you weren’t going to win, but hey at least you tried,” was her way of saying that her kids had been good competition.

            “Oh please, I’ll totally win next time,” was Murphy’s reply, to which Octavia started laughing.

            “You’ve been telling me that for the past few weeks and you’ve still only beaten me _twice_ in Mortal Kombat!”

            “Yeah, but I beat you twice!” Murphy grinned.

            Later that night, Murphy had asked Bellamy if he could sleep in his bed for a change, to which Bellamy smirked, causing Murphy to roll his eyes.

            “I’m just tired of sleeping in the guest bedroom, okay?”

            Bellamy didn’t even reply and had just motioned for Murphy to come in his bedroom. Murphy lied down next to Bellamy, still restless though it was already 10:30 and they had school tomorrow. Murphy felt Bellamy’s arm being wrapped around his waist, and he let out a small sigh, feeling more relaxed than ever. It was nice, just lying next to each other, Murphy had decided. He didn’t need to be kissing Bellamy tons, or have sex with him, or anything of the sort. He was perfectly content with a few kisses every now and then, and just cuddling up next to him when they were watching some movie Bellamy had convinced him into watching. He felt a sense of relief wash over him whenever he held Bellamy’s hand, knowing that Bellamy would never intentionally hurt him, and knowing that he was safe with him. He could trust Bellamy, despite the fact that he had cheated on his previous girlfriend. Murphy couldn’t figure out why Bellamy chose him out of all people, especially since practically every girl would love to date the star of the football team and it wasn’t like he had limited options, but he was glad Bellamy had chose him. Murphy, the guy who had a shit ton of problems in his life. The one who was still hiding the fact that he self-harmed (although he hadn’t slipped up since he moved into Bellamy’s a few weeks ago). The one who had been so nervous to even talk to Bellamy that he almost puked when he asked Bellamy to dance with him at homecoming. Murphy, who was insecure about himself and because of this was even more insecure about his friendships, which lead to him having almost no friends. The one who had eaten lunch alone his whole entire freshman year of high school. The one who had cried in the school bathroom because he had failed a class and had to find a way to put himself through summer school the end of freshman year. Yet, _he_ was the one Bellamy chose, and having Bellamy’s arm wrapped around his waist when he dozed off to sleep that night made him feel better than he ever had felt before.


	25. Homework is Boring

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yo listen i know it's been too long since i've updated lmao but i'll try to get a bit better (and besides that this is now the only long fic i'm actually working on since i finished my jonty comic con au which, if you like comic cons and jonty, please check it out?). also i really like writing maya tbh she's pretty fun to write and it's really fun writing the growing friendship between her, monty, and jasper, so i hope you all have been liking that. next chapter is all princess mechanic because it's been too long since they've had a chapter, and i hope you enjoy this chapter!!! shoutout to everybody that's left kind comments on this you all are the best <3

            “You cool with skipping the school dance for Valentine’s Day?”

            “Yeah, sure, I mean I went last year but it wasn’t that great,” Jasper replied. In all honesty, the dance was actually a complete disaster. He had gone with Octavia and her group of friends, and while it had been fun, he got a headache twenty minutes into the dance from the music being too loud, and ended up getting a migraine so bad that by the end of the dance he ended up vomiting in the bathroom. After that, he vowed to never go to another spring fling/winter ball (the school chose the name based on whether or not it would be above freezing on the day of the dance, he was convinced) for the rest of his high school career.

            “Alright, cool! Let’s just hang out at my house on Saturday then, yeah?”

            “That sounds great,” Jasper responded as the bell rang, signaling their biology class had officially started.

            As their teacher lectured on and on about the importance of the chloroplasts, Jasper eventually rested his head on his desk and fell asleep while Monty continued to actually take the notes, furiously scribbling them down before the teacher quickly moved on to the next slide. His hand started to cramp up after about twenty minutes, but continued writing all the notes down in his progressively sloppier writing, figuring that eventually they would come in handy whenever he decided to study.

            “And that’s all I’ve got today,” were the words that Monty couldn’t help but let out a relieved sigh at. After spending all but five minutes left of the class lecturing, their teacher was finally done ranting on about chlorophyll, chloroplasts, photosynthesis, and practically anything related to plants and sunlight. Although Monty did find bits and pieces interesting, he couldn’t help but zone out when their teacher used a monotone voice throughout a whole lecture. Nudging Jasper awake, Monty started packing up, shoving his binder into his bookbag, ready to get to his next class as quickly as possible. After giving Jasper a kiss on the cheek goodbye, Monty walked down the two flights of stairs into his arguably favorite class that year, English. It wasn’t that the class itself was that interesting, but more of the teacher generally giving very little homework, being lenient on deadlines, and always letting people work together on everything. That and she pretty much never lectured, and all her notes were printed out and copies were given to everybody, making Monty’s notebook for that class practically useless, with the exception of using it for extra paper to write on in other classes.

            “Hey, Monty,” Maya greeted him as he walked into class. Over the past few weeks of talking to her, Monty had found out that Maya was a really sweet and caring person, but she also had about as much sarcasm in her as Monty did, ending up in them becoming quick friends. He had also found out that she realized she disliked their orchestra teacher within a week, that she absolutely could not stand salt and vinegar chips (Monty tried not to take that personally), and her purse seemed to hold everything anybody could ever need in it.

            “Hey, Maya! How’s it going?”

            “Well besides me already having homework assignments in two out of three classes, not bad actually, though I am really tired,” She replied.

            “Let me guess, stayed up late last night binge-watching TV shows?”

            “Who, me? No, not at all, I would never in a thousand years stay up until midnight having a Defiance marathon,” She deadpanned, breaking into a laugh seconds later.

            “Okay I have to admit, that show is pretty great. What episode are you on?”

            “Just started season three, aka the last season thanks to the syfy channel cancelling practically everything after three seasons. Why this?”

            “I know the feeling,” Monty responded. Before he could continue their conversation about mourning cancelled television shows, the teacher started talking.

            “Alright, there’s the bell,” She said in a soft voice, “So today we’re just going to continue focusing on writing our short stories, so feel free to use the time however you see best fit! Try to get some work done though, since it’s due next week, and yes I’ll keep reminding you about it,” She paused for a few seconds before adding, “I look forward to seeing what you come up with!” with a small smile spread across her face.

            “Okay so what’s your opinion on Irisa?” Maya asked a split second after the teacher finished speaking.

            “She’s so wonderful and great and smart and resourceful and I love her so much it’s unreal,” Monty rambled on, “And sure she’s not the most social person ever but she definitely loves the people she’s close to and I just wish the show hadn’t been cancelled because Irisa was one of the best characters to ever grace television and ughhhhh,” he finished with, knowing that if he was allowed to he could rant and rave for hours about how great the show was.

            “Okay actual same honestly like she’s so wonderful omg,” Maya said while getting out a sheet of paper so she could start writing down story ideas.

            “So, on another topic, do you have any ideas for your story yet?”

            “Not really, but I’m sure something will come to mind soon enough, and I mean we still have a week and a day since it’s due next Friday.”

            “True,” Monty agreed. They spent the rest of class discussing a multitude of TV shows (and how underappreciated some of them were), complaining about how the orchestra teacher would say that they would get to a part of the song that day and then never reach that part of the song, debating for a few minutes about the best frappucino at Starbucks (Monty was a huge fan of Caramel ones, but Maya loyally stuck to Vanilla Bean as being the best), and just in general speaking to each other about anything that came to mind. Towards the end of the bell, the subject of the school dance inevitably came up.

            “So, are you going or nah?”

            “Nah, from what I heard it wasn’t that great last year, and me and Jas’ are just going to hang out that day instead. You?”

            “I think I’ll go just to meet some more people, to be honest. Besides, maybe somebody cute will ask me to dance, and my mom has been dying to take me dress shopping lately. She always says I need to look more feminine for some reason,” Maya said, rolling her eyes while mentioning her mom, “But I don’t find skirts comfortable and I’d rather wear a pair of black boots than flats. Not that I have anything against how other girls dress, I mean seriously like other girls dress really cute, especially this girl that I’ve seen walking around with brown hair who always has her hair in some intricate braid and wears small heels all the time and has the prettiest blue eyes and uh, sorry what was I saying?”

            Monty couldn’t help but let out a small laugh. “You were saying that you’d rather dress comfortably than fashionably, and also not so subtlety saying that you definitely have a small crush on the one and only Octavia Blake. Her brother’s the star football player, and yeah he’s done some questionable things, but he cares tons about his little sister, and Octavia is one of the sweetest people that you will ever meet, so I would say go for her,” Monty told her. “She’ll probably go to the dance if I were to guess, so maybe you really will get to dance with somebody cute,” He winked.

            “Wait, is she actually into girls?”

            “Yeah,” Monty shrugged as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

            “So,” Maya paused for a second, letting to information sink in, “I actually have a chance?”

            “Definitely!” Monty said as the bell rang.

            After school, Jasper met Monty at his car as usual so they could drive back to Monty’s house. Honestly, the fact that they were spending Saturday together wasn’t even that unheard of, since they spent nearly every weekend at Monty’s house, but it was nice to have it confirmed none the less. Monty’s mom greeted them with huge hugs and a smile on her face.

            “I got great news today, boys!”

            “And what is that news, mom?” Monty asked, happy for her.

            “I got a raise at work! An extra two dollars an hour!”

            “That’s great!” Monty exclaimed, giving her another quick hug. Though they always made it through the month, there were some months where they had to live off of around twenty dollars for a span of three days. However, his mom always managed to find a way to keep them afloat, and though it was hard to do at times since his father had divorced her years ago, she still always found a way to make sure they had what they needed to live.

            “I know, it’s such a relief,” She sighed, “Well, I’ll be in the living room if you need me for anything you two.”

            “And we’ll obviously be in my room,” Monty said, rolling his eyes (this was a conversation that happened every day), “And yes mom, the door will stay unlocked,” he finished as he walked the few steps back into his bedroom. His mom always insisted on him leaving the door unlocked, seemingly paranoid that they would totally be having sex if the door _was_ locked. Yet little did she know, there was about a zero percent chance of that ever happening, although there was one time where she forgot to knock on the door and had walked in on them kissing once, which was awkward for everybody, and now she always remembered to knock.

            “Hmmmmmm,” Jasper hummed in thought, “I kind of want to kiss you right now,” he stated with a shrug of his shoulders while slowly lying down sideways on Monty’s bed. Monty lied down next to him, face to face, and leaned in slowly to kiss him. Monty grinned into the kiss, feeling like he could live in these moments forever. Their lips pressed together gently at first, both of them relishing just slow, languid kisses that were soft and sweet, Monty lightly running his fingers through Jasper’s curly locks of hair, smiling at how soft his hair was. Jasper pulled Monty closer, wrapping an arm around him loosely, as he started speeding up their kisses. Monty followed Jasper’s pace as the kisses got less sweet and gentle and more sloppy and needy. Monty felt his lower lip getting bit, and let out quiet moans while lightly tugging on Jasper’s hair as he kissed him back quickly, not even caring that he knew he had tons of homework that still had to be done. Kissing Jasper was one of the things he loved most, and when he heard Jasper whimper the second he bit harshly into his lower lip, he knew that nothing else mattered at that moment, especially since Jasper started dragging his nails down Monty’s back, sending shivers down his spine in the best way possible. Eventually, Monty started slowing down the kiss, which faded into both of them staring into each other’s eyes while pressing chaste kisses to each other’s lips every few seconds.

            “I should uh, probably get started on my homework,” Monty said as more of a suggestion than anything else.

            Jasper let out a sigh before agreeing they both had homework that was in desperate need of attention.

            “But hey, the faster we get this done, the faster we can start making out again,” Monty smirked. They got what would’ve usually been two and half hours worth of homework done in exactly one hour and forty-five minutes.


	26. #Gal Pals

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> princess mechanic tho ayyyyyy
> 
> okay so i actually had plenty of writing inspiration recently so you're getting this way sooner than i even anticipated so uh yeah, that. also have i mentioned how much i love writing for these two?? because it's a lot. these two are huge nerds that are very much in love and it's great tbh. next chapter is going to be octavia, harpoe, and another certain character that you can probably figure out who she is from this chapter like honestly it's not hard to guess who. anyways, hope you enjoy this chapter!!

            Raven and Clarke had decided to go the Valentine’s day dance, mainly because neither of them had anything better to do that weekend, and hopefully it would help the junior class make some more money (the senior class had already stolen the best way to make money- selling pizza after school for a dollar a slice). Clarke was sitting in the bathroom, her pale blue dress already on her, and her mom was standing behind her and curling her hair for her. She had told Clarke that back in the 80s she used to curl her hair nearly every day, and joked that she was basically a professional at it. Clarke smiled at the comment and let her mom curl her hair, knowing that it couldn’t turn out too bad. She was on her phone texting Raven and scrolling through tumblr, praying that no porn would show up on her dash.

            **Clarke:** **I’m so hyped for tonight!! it’s gonna be gr8**

**Raven: definitelyyy yo!! also are we going out to dinner before or nah?**

**Clarke: yeah, sure! i’ve got no idea where tho so uh… think of something haha**

**Raven: will do haha. i think you’re going to love the dress i’m wearing by the way**

Clarke’s hair was done being curled approximately half an hour later, her mom grinning at the results of her work, along with tons of hairspray. She pinched one of Clarke’s cheeks and started her usual talking about how she couldn’t believe how quick she was growing up, and Clarke gently cut off that speech by responding with “I know, you tell me this tons.” After her mom walked out of the bathroom, Clarke started to work on figuring out what eyeshadow she was going to wear. She decided to do a smokey eye, but with a light blue in place of white, and a darker navy blue instead of grey. She had done this so many times that it took her all of five minutes, and she pulled out her black liquid eyeliner, drawing two winged lines to finish out her look. She snapped some selfies and grinned, immediately posting said selfies on tumblr, hoping they would gain a few likes.

            Raven arrived at the Griffin household at exactly 5:33 PM, and Clarke’s jaw nearly dropped to the floor upon seeing what she was wearing. Raven was definitely right about Clarke liking her dress. She looked at her, eyes wide, and loved the way the red dress seemed to mold itself perfectly to show off Raven’s curves, and some of her other… assets. She blinked rapidly and shook her head as she tried to think of something endearing or intelligent to say, but all that came to her mind was a multitude of curse words such as _damn_ and _holy fucking shit you look so damn good right now._ Raven smirked and licked her lips quickly, only worsening Clarke’s problem.

            “Uh, hey,” were the words she managed to get out, and nervously laughed. Raven started bursting out in laughter, lightening the mood, as they both went back to Clarke’s bedroom and sat down on her bed, laughter still tumbling out of Raven’s whole body.

            “Damn Clarke, didn’t know this dress would have that much of an effect on you,” She commented, smiling widely. She pulled her phone out of her purse and demanded that they take selfies together so she could post them on her Instagram.

            “Tumblr is better,” Clarke said while rolling her eyes, but still agreed to taking tons of pictures together, knowing that both of them wanted to capture this memory forever. They took a few more serious ones with only nice smiles, but at one point Raven started throwing up peace signs and Clarke started pointing finger guns at Raven like she had just made a really clever pun. She thought both types of pictures looked equally nice. They posted almost all of the pictures and Raven put her phone back in her purse, irritated that dresses never had pockets, or really any clothing geared towards women. She was convinced it was so that the fashion industry could more easily sell purses.

            “So, where are we going for dinner?” Clarke asked, leaning her head against Raven’s shoulder, careful not to mess up her curls, although she was certain that with how much hairspray her mom had used, there was no way they could uncurl.

            “Right, that’s what I was supposed to decide,” Raven mumbled, purposely looking away from Clarke, “How about Olive Garden? Their breadsticks are the best,” She suggested.

            And so they ended up at Olive Garden twenty minutes later. It would’ve been fifteen, but Clarke’s mom nagged them for a few pictures, and they obliged her requests. They were sitting across from each other in a booth near the back corner, and were waiting for their server to arrive, scrolling through their phones to pass the time. Clarke was checking her facebook, rolling her eyes with a small grin when she saw that her mom had already posted pictures and tagged both her and Raven in them. She saw some comments on the pictures from her grandma and started laughing when she read them.           

            “Raven, you’ve got to read the comments on these pictures oh my god I’m laughing so hard right now,” Clarke said and handed her phone over to her.

            “Your grandma literally just thinks we’re gal pals this is too good,” Raven responded. She had told her parents that she was dating Clarke about two weeks ago, and they had supported her, saying that they couldn’t care less who she loved and that she would always be their loving, wonderful daughter. She gave them a huge hug after that and then joined her little sister in her room, who was watching The Book of Life. She had thought the movie was adorable and was fine with rewatching it a few times.

            Eventually their server arrived, they ordered their food, and talked the whole time while waiting about books they had read recently, as well as what songs they had stuck in their head non-stop (Clarke and Raven both were convinced the Hamilton soundtrack was flawless and it deserved being stuck in their heads nearly every day), and just enjoyed the natural flow of conversation that they had always had. Raven thought their relationship was one of the easiest things to ever be in, and everything just felt so right, like it was always meant to happen. She loved how easy it was for them to always be together, and well, she couldn’t deny how much she loved the way Clarke’s lips felt pressed against her own. After some time, their conversation was still going on despite them both being finished with their meal, and they realized they should probably leave so they could actually get to the dance. Clarke left a twenty percent tip and they both walked out of the restaurant holding hands, ready to continue the night.

            They walked into the gym where the dance was being held and could already feel the temperature rising in the room. It was more crowded than either of them had expected, but there was still plenty of room so that they could have their own personal space. Girls in dresses every color of the rainbow were kicking off their heels to the side, some of them dancing with friends and twirling around in their dresses, some of them in a more secluded spot and not so subtly kissing their partners. Clarke caught one couple kissing and laughed to herself, amused at how some people just truly didn’t care about tons of people watching them kiss. Still, she sort of admired them in a way, knowing that if she were to kiss Raven in front of some people, she’d probably get yelled at or punched in the face. She let out a dejected sigh as the next song began to play, immediately returning a grin to her face as she realized it was a slow song. _Maybe we can dance together, maybe,_ She hoped. Raven tapped her on her shoulder, ready to ask that question.

            “Would you like to dance?” She asked, a gentle smile on her face as she pushed her hair behind her ear. She was just as nervous as Clarke, even if it didn’t show as obviously. Clarke’s cheeks turned a deep pink, almost the color of raspberries, as she nodded her head yes.

            Clarke put her arms around Raven’s shoulders as the song played, and she couldn’t stop grinning and trying not to stare at her for too long. Her efforts failed and she looked at Raven like she had hung every last star in the sky. She loved her smile and the twinkle in her dark brown eyes, which looked full of love for her and her alone, and she knew at that exact moment that there was no way she ever wanted to let her go. She knew it was cliché, but didn’t care at all, especially when she felt Raven place her arms around her waist, holding her close. She could smell a hint of flowers, maybe jasmine? No matter what it was, it smelled wonderful and only served to make the moment better. Clarke leaned her head up against Raven’s shoulder, inhaling deeply, feeling at home in her arms. Raven closed her eyes for a second, wanting to cherish this forever. The song drew to a close too soon, causing them to pull apart from each other, slowly. While pulling away, Clarke could see Octavia talking to some new girl out of the corner of her eye, and was internally happy for her. Raven and Clarke spent the rest of the night together, dancing until their feet were sore as could be, weaving in and out of the crowd of people in the middle. At one point Raven started grinding on Clarke just to tease her, and started laughing at the look on Clarke’s face.

            The dance eventually died down, and Clarke and Raven got back to Clarke’s house a little after eleven. Both of them were exhausted, and were glad to change into pajamas and go to sleep. Clarke turned on her TV and scrolled through the channels and realized ABC Family had yet another Harry Potter marathon going on, and left it on that. She lazily brushed her teeth after changing into a t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants, and plopped down on her bed next to Raven, who was already lying down. After a quick kiss goodnight, they fell asleep, arms wrapped around each other’s waists, feeling warm and fuzzy inside and most of all, loved.


	27. Butterflies; Growing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> honestly my first hope for this chapter is that the way i'm portraying Roe's genderfluidity is okay, and if i'm doing something terribly wrong please tell me in the comments because while i try to do a good job, i'm not the authority on that matter and i'll openly admit that so please correct me if i'm wrong i will not at all be offended.
> 
> also ayyyy a chapter with some of my faves that i thought needed some more attention drawn to them (and also i wanted to get octavia and maya to finally meet b/c i love both of them so much) so i wrote what happened during the dance from octavia's perspective and i hope you like it!!! next chapter is a very heavily raven-focused one that'll dig deeper into her family life and her own thoughts and stuff so yeah. if you liked this chapter, please leave a comment!! i thrive on them and look back at them from time to time as a happy reminder that some people out there enjoy what i'm doing so all your kind comments are very much appreciated and remembered

            Octavia had been hanging out with Harper and Roe (Monroe had been digging deeper into their gender identity and had asked their friends to use the name Roe and now use they/them pronouns, and they were just glad they had supportive friends that gladly went along with it), when Maya walked up to her and nervously started a conversation.

            “Hi, I’m Maya!”

            “Oh, hey! Octavia. You’re one of Monty’s friends, yeah?” She asked. She had gotten a text last week from him talking about how nice the new girl was and how they should totally be friends because he thought they would get along well. She had rolled her eyes but texted him back that whenever she saw her next, she would say hi to her.

            “Yeah! I’m assuming he’s mentioned me before?”

            “Something like that. He said you were really nice and kind and that we would be great friends,” Octavia replied with a quick laugh and a smile on her face. She unconsciously smoothed down her dress, trying to make herself look more presentable, and hoped that her hair wasn’t frizzing up like it was prone to do on occasion.

            “Well, I hope we will be,” Maya responded with a shrug, “Oh, uh, who are your friends?”

            “This is Roe, they’re pretty chill, and this is Harper, and she’s great,” Octavia introduced the both of them, leaving out the part about how her and Harper used to be a thing. Over the past month she had been feeling like Harper was starting to have feelings for Roe, and was truly happy for the both of them and always had a smirk on her face whenever they both started rambling on about something while staring deep into each other’s eyes. She thought they would be good for each other.

            Maya introduced herself to the both of them, and they all awkwardly tried to dance to a song together, which amounted to nothing more than a few fist pumps and swinging their hips while Harper kept pulling up her strapless dress, worried it was going to fall down at any second. Roe decided they were going to go get something to drink and Harper followed them immediately. They walked side by side out of the gym and into the cafeteria, their hands only inches away from touching, and Octavia couldn’t help but giggle to herself. She hoped that those two realized their feelings for each other sometime soon. For a second, she almost forgot Maya was still standing next to her, and then she realized it was a slow song that was playing. More specifically, Thinking Out Loud by Ed Sheeran, a song she loved but right now absolutely didn’t want to hear, especially not with a most likely straight girl next to her that she thought looked adorable. Octavia especially thought her dark brown, nearly black, curled hair looked gorgeous and she was envious of her makeup skills allowing her to perfect the smoky eye look. Her rosy pink dress was shimmery and flowy, and she looked like some sort of Disney princess in it, and Octavia decided that she needed to get to know this girl better. She also made a mental reminder to thank Monty for being at least half the reason she was even talking to this girl right now.

            “Ugh, slow dances are so weird when you have nobody to dance with,” Maya commented, glancing down at the floor.

            “I know, right?” Octavia responded, letting out a loud sigh of agreement. She knew there was no way either of them were going to ask the other to dance, especially since they had literally just met, but there was still that faint hope.

            “So, uh, what’s your favorite class?” Maya asked, changing the subject in a way to try knowing her better.

            “Probably English to be honest, although it may just be because the teacher is pretty cool,” She replied with a grin, “What’s yours?”

            “Definitely orchestra, although from what I’ve heard the teacher’s a total bitch,” Maya mumbled the last bit under her breath, causing Octavia to start laughing. She had heard countless complaints from nearly everybody in orchestra about their teacher, and all of them were completely in line with what Maya was saying.

            “Good luck surviving that class,” She told her, gently placing her hand on her shoulder to emphasize her point.

            “Thanks, I think I’m going to need it,” Maya smiled back at her, licking her lips that were chapped due to the freezing cold weather that was still going on even in the middle of February. She made a mental note to throw some lip balm in her purse tomorrow. Luckily the song ended quickly, and Harper and Roe came back about two minutes later, their presence breaking any tension present in the air. Some faster song with tons of bass in it started playing next, and they continued their dancing, barely outside of the large crowd that had formed around the DJ in the middle of the gym. Octavia refused to deal with being around tons of sweaty people who didn’t know how to put on deodorant, so she always made sure they never got drawn into the large crowd. Harper, Roe, and Maya all agreed that none of them wanted to feel another person’s sweat on their arm or even so much as smell a person with no deodorant on, which was getting harder to do since the temperature still seemed to be rising the more people danced. After hours of dancing the night away, with plenty of breaks to go sit in the cafeteria and cool down, Octavia was completely fine with being done dancing. She grabbed her heels from where she had thrown them and called Bellamy to come pick her up.

            “Hey, Bel’, I want to leave a bit early, so can you come get me?” She asked loudly, the music still playing in the background.

            “Sure, be there soon,” He responded as he threw on a pair of shoes.

            “Thanks! You’re the best,” Octavia replied as she hung up. She said her goodbyes to Harper and Roe, squeezing the both of them into a group hug, making all of them smile. She then said goodbye to Maya as well, but not before exchanging phone numbers and saying that they should talk more. She gave her a quick, gentle hug before waving goodbye as she out the front doors of the school, waiting outside right outside the doors until Bellamy arrived about five minutes later. She got in the car and started going on and on about how great the dance was, and Bellamy was glad for her enthusiasm and was happy she enjoyed the dance.

            Octavia took a quick shower to rinse any bit of sweat off of her, humming a song to herself while she washed her hair, and snuggled up under her favorite fuzzy blanket, tired as could be. She was almost asleep when she heard her phone vibrate with a text from Maya.

**Maya: The dance was so much fun!! hope to talk to u more soon**

            Octavia looked at the text and was glad to see multiple smiley face emojis at the end of it. She decided to wait until tomorrow morning to text her when she actually had energy. Still, she went to sleep that night with a big smile on her face, feeling hopeful.


	28. Poetry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao me throw some shade at the 100 in this fanfic??? no i would never do that ever whattttt
> 
> Okay in all seriousness though I really loved writing this chapter focusing a lot more on Raven because I love her a lot and I hope you enjoy reading this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it!! Also I google translated the very little bit of spanish in this chapter (i took three years of spanish though and everything seems perfectly fine from what I remember and i really wanted to include Raven being bilingual because i feel like she probably is), so if any of it's blatantly wrong please inform me of it. Next chapter is actually the longest of this fic so far and it's a party chapter with the main focus on Jasper and Monty!! You don't have to leave any comments, but if you like this fic it would mean a lot if you left kind comments because they always brighten up my day a little bit c:

            The days rolled on by, Clarke trying her hardest to actually keep up with her APUSH homework, not even caring about copying the vocab assignments half the time, figuring she had to do what it took to pass, and she didn’t have time to actually read through the chapter and absorb every last bit of information. She was getting more stressed out by the day, along with Raven, although for a much different reason. Raven had to see her family again over spring break, and she was worried about what they would say when she told them she was going into mechanical engineering, but she had decided she was just going to tell them this time instead of just brushing off their comments about how she should really go into something literature related. She had even sworn off writing poems recently in a silent protest, although when she saw Clarke smile she was tempted to write a thousand sonnets about her if it were even possible. Still, she held strong, way too strong, and refused to write any poetry just so that her family couldn’t talk to her about it for once.

            The first day of spring break arrived, and Raven let the wind blow through her hair as she drove home, wishing this feeling of freedom and lightheartedness could last an eternity. Her hopes were crushed the second she walked in the door and saw her aunt and uncle already chatting it up with her mom. She let out an annoyed sigh, loudly, and drew the attention of everybody around her.

            “Long day at school?” Her aunt asked.

            “You could say that,” Raven replied, quickly walking into her room and closing the door a bit harder than normal, locking it to purposely annoy whoever tried entering her room next, which ended up being her mom a mere thirty seconds later.

               “You know we don’t lock the doors in this house! Open up,” She yelled, “Cuál es el problema?” She whispered in her native tongue, hoping it would get her to actually open her door.

               “El problema es ella!” Raven spat back, but unlocked the door anyways after she heard her mother’s footsteps getting lighter. She could feel the tears threatening to spill, and her face was hot with anger. She took a few deep breaths and collapsed on her bed, putting her face in her hands as she tried to collect herself. She pulled her hair up into a tight ponytail and rubbed at her eyes for another few seconds and went back into the living room to see her aunt with a confused look on her face that looked vaguely irritated or disappointed, she couldn’t tell which. Raven looked down at the floor, purposely averting her gaze away from the woman that she couldn’t stand half the time, and waited for her to speak.

               “I heard you haven’t been writing much recently. It’s a shame, I loved to read it, how you described the sky was so beautiful,” Her aunt spoke with a hint of nostalgia in her voice.

               “Yeah, well, the sky might be pretty but learning how to calculate angular momentum in physics class right now is way more fun than poetry,” She retorted, raising her eyebrows to emphasize her annoyance.

               “Raven, don’t talk to your aunt that way, she was just trying to figure out why you aren’t writing,” Her uncle said calmly, trying to cool her temper.

               “I’m not writing because that’s all she ever talks to me about!” She shouted, sharp biting venom in each syllable she voiced, “I’m tired of it!” She finished and stormed back to her room. She was half tempted to slam the door, but remembered the last time she did that her mom threatened to rip it off its hinges, and decided on shutting the door gently. She pulled out her phone, already texting Clarke to tell her what had happened.

               **_My aunt is being so annoying I swear –Raven._**

**_Do you want to talk about what happened? –Clarke_ **

**_all she ever talks to me about is my poetry, i swear, and it’s been getting on my nerves and i’ve even been trying to drop hints that i don’t really care that terribly much about fucking poetry (i mean it’s nice but like… not that amazingly great) and i just feel like she’s never really cared about getting to know me and then i yelled at her about it and i sort of feel shitty but i also really don’t??? –Raven_ **

**_That sucks that she only talks to you about that tho I don’t blame you at all for going off on her –Clarke_ **

**_like she tries to be nice and will sometimes talk about how nice the weather is or ask if i’ve seen any movies i liked recently but i just wish she would actually get to know me better idk –Raven_ ** ****

She heard quiet tapping on her door, but stayed sitting on her bed, refusing to move. She put her phone face down next to her and crossed her arms across her chest, knowing that the door would creak open any second now. She started a mental countdown from ten and the door opened on three to reveal her uncle, who seemed annoyed by everything that was transpiring in the Reyes household at the moment.

               “Listen Rave’, your aunt didn’t mean to upset you, I promise. You know she isn’t always the best with her words, and maybe that’s why she admires how great you are at using them, yeah?” He shrugged and continued on, “I’m not saying you have to come back out, but it would be nice if you did,” He gave a small wave as he closed the door behind him and retreated into the kitchen to get himself something to drink.

               Raven stayed in her room for a few hours, texting Clarke back and forth about everything and scrolling through her instagram, liking a few of the pictures that were being posted by Roe and Harper, who appeared to be going out for dinner together with a group of friends. She still couldn’t tell if those two were dating, but there was a picture of Roe giving Harper a kiss on the cheek and a picture of Harper with her arm wrapped around Roe’s shoulders. She kept scrolling through, eventually switching to check up on her twitter feed where tons of people were currently complaining about the death of a beloved lesbian character who died by, surprise surprise, a gunshot wound, as usual. Raven started looking into that drama for a few minutes and breathed a sigh of relief that she had never watched that show.

               The smell of food cooking in the kitchen was what finally drew her out of her room, her stomach growling at her to move her feet and at least eat, if nothing else. She spotted her aunt cooking enchiladas while her mom was making a salad with tons of different vegetables in it that she knew she would probably take out of it herself (besides the tomatoes, she loved tomatoes). She asked how much time was left, and her uncle told her it should only be another five minutes at most, and also asked her if she could tell her sister that dinner was ready, to which she responded yes.

               The tension in the air was tangible as everybody sat down for dinner, food already on their plates. Raven wasn’t going to dare be the first to start eating, and felt bad for her little sister, who was probably confused as to why nobody was talking. Her uncle purposely coughed to try getting somebody to say something, anything, but nobody would speak. Her mom had a warm smile still on her face, hoping that would encourage conversation, but no conversation was happening.

               “Well, the food looks great, let’s eat,” Her mom finally said, and that was their signal to dig in. Raven started eating her food with a look of irritation still on her face, but had to grin at how good it tasted. She couldn’t deny her aunt made excellent enchiladas, and was very thankful for that.

               “These are great,” Raven mumbled, staring into her plate. That seemed to lift the mood up, and she saw her uncle smile, blatantly grateful that the fighting hadn’t carried into dinner. Her aunt no longer had a bitter look on her face, and could almost be seen cracking a smile.

               “Yeah, they’re real good,” Her little sister added on with a big smile, and Raven couldn’t help but grin back at her seven year old little sister who clearly didn’t understand much of what had been going on that day.

               Dinner continued in an almost silence, but when it occasionally broke it wasn’t to argue or yell, it was to say the food was good, or how glad they were that it was finally sunnier and brighter outside, or how they could all agree that Donald Trump was quite possibly the worst candidate for president. Really they just talked about anything they could all agree on as a family, which took a tremendous amount of stress off of both Raven and her mom. Raven still didn’t necessarily love her aunt tons, but she would be civil and even kind at times towards her if it killed her just so that she wouldn’t get as angry every time she came over. _Maybe it’ll work,_ she hoped. That night she decided to write the first poem in months, and it was indeed about how beautiful Clarke’s smile looked last week when she was swinging on the swings at the nearby park, and how she looked like a joyous little kid again with no fears in the world. Raven smiled to herself as she put down her pen, satisfied with her writing for the first time in years, because it was all written out of love. Not fear, not hatred, not anger, but love that she hoped would last until the end of her days.


	29. What Time is it? Party Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the longest chapter of the story so far, wow. i decided that jasper and monty would definitely throw a spring break party and it would be great and i also felt like i needed to lighten up the mood of the story for at least a little bit so yeah this. In case you're wondering what song Murphy was grinding on Bellamy to (i love little details but i didn't throw it in the chapter because it would've interrupted the flow), it's Can't Feel my Face by The Weeknd. Next chapter is going to be a heavily Murphy and Bellamy one that's going to be a lot more emotional and not so lighthearted and will contain some potentially triggering stuff in it. I hope you enjoy this chapter though, and it would be great if you left comments if you enjoyed this!!

            It was spring break. The wind breezed its way through Monty’s hair, and the cool air tingled against his skin as he walked hand in hand with Jasper, both of them soaking up the sun. They had decided to go to the park that day, and had already planned out a party that night to celebrate spring break. Jasper raced over to the swing set, pumping his legs back and forth to get higher and higher on the swings until he swore he could touch the sky. Admittedly, they shouldn’t have eaten weed brownies that morning, but the idea was too tempting for either of them to resist. Jasper let one of his arms reach up and out into the sky, pretending to touch the clouds, and realized his swing started to sway back and forth differently, causing him to come close to losing his balance. He quickly returned his arm to the rusted metal chain on the side of the swing and made sure not to go up that high again. Monty was perfectly content with just sitting on the swing and drinking the bottle of water he had brought. The water tasted so cold he momentarily thought it was an ice cube slowly melting down his throat when he took his first gulp of it, and he shuddered. He gave it a few minutes before drinking the water, this time in slow sips.

            “Hey, Monty, feelin’ kinda dizzy,” Jasper said, voice low as he stopped swinging.

            “Maybe we shouldn’t have come to the park,” Monty commented. It had been a good idea at the time, but now he just wanted to be at home relaxing and watching movies until their party started.

            They had invited the Blake siblings, who had eagerly accepted the invitation and had asked if they could bring guests along, which had resulted in Murphy and Maya also coming to the party. Monty had texted Clarke to see if she wanted to come, but she had said that she was already hanging out with Raven, but thanked him for the invite none the less. Octavia had asked if she could also invite along Harper and Roe, and Monty said that was perfectly fine. Murphy texted Jasper wondering if he could invite Miller along since he hadn’t seen him in a while, and also because “Jasper come on I’ve got to prove I can kick his ass at Mortal Kombat he crushed me last party”, so Jasper had agreed on the condition that Murphy would make sure to not throw a controller in anger like he did last time (luckily the controller hadn’t broken but there was some duct tape used in holding it together). Then one thing led to another and Miller texted asking if he could invite Bryan, his boyfriend that he had met a few weeks ago when he was at the library and was just casually recommending book suggestions to at first but then they started talking in one of the corners of the library and within an hour had each others’ numbers. Murphy texted a little while later asking if his friend Mbege could also come along, and then Bellamy texted asking if this girl Roma could join them as well (Bellamy was in the greek myths section of the library before school one day and so was Roma and while they weren’t best friends for life, they were chill with each other and Roma had always mentioned how she was upset about not getting invited to many parties). Then Roma had gotten Monty’s number and asked if she could bring some friends, Murphy kept blowing up Jasper’s phone with people he wanted to invite, and Octavia also suggested another person or two to come along. All in all, by the end of the day the party was announced, the originally expected six to seven people ended up becoming twenty-five people. Luckily, Jasper had a big house, since Monty’s house definitely couldn’t contain that many people. Just as luckily, Jasper’s parents were out of town that weekend, although that wasn’t much of a change from normal.

            “I can’t believe we’re seriously having this party with twenty-five people,” Monty said as they walked back to his house, glad that the park was in walking distance because he was in no state to drive right now.

            “I know. It’s gonna be great,” Jasper replied, his eyes lighting up in excitement. His head was still in the clouds despite his feet being planted firmly on the ground, and he lazily wrapped his arm around Monty’s waist as they walked into the door of Monty’s house.

            “Wait, how are we going to get to your house?” Monty asked, realizing now that they really should’ve waited on those weed brownies until the party actually started.

            “Can your mom drive us over?”

            “At work, shit,” Monty responded with a sigh, realizing they were going to have to call somebody to pick them up and drive them to their own party. While it was embarrassing, it still wasn’t the most embarrassing to ever happen to either of them, “Who are we gonna call?”

            “Ghostbusters!” Jasper shouted, resulting in them both laughing for a while before they could regain their composure. After wiping a few tears of laughter from his eyes, Monty felt around for his phone, and upon finding it in his front pocket, took it out to call up one of the few people he knew that could definitely find him a ride: Octavia. Most of the time her being a social butterfly came in handy, and this was one of those times. He also knew she wouldn’t judge him for being high as a kite and would probably just laugh if he started saying anything weird.

            “Hey, ‘Tavia, need a ride to Jasper’s… like, soon,” He told her once she had picked up her phone.

            “You need a ride to your own party?” She asked before the realization sunk in, “Oh, you’re high, aren’t you? Alright let me call my brother and see if he can give you a ride,” She hung up and called Bellamy seconds later.

            “Bell’, Monty and Jasper need a ride to Jasper’s house,” She informed him after he picked up his phone on her third time in a row calling him.

            “Tell them I’ll be on my way in about ten minutes, maybe fifteen,” He replied quickly, seemingly out of breath. Octavia did not want to know what was going on right now. She hung up on Bellamy and told Monty that Bellamy would be on his way in fifteen minutes, and to just be ready. Monty thanked her quietly as Jasper yelled his thanks into the phone before hanging up.

            Jasper and Monty got to work on setting up the party once they arrived at Jasper’s house, both of them telling Bellamy and Murphy that they could just chill and do whatever as long as they weren’t in Jasper’s parent’s bedroom, and made sure to clarify that bedroom as absolutely off limits. The first thing they did was taped a piece of paper with the words “OFF LIMITS” onto that door, the words underlined twice in red sharpie to fully emphasize the point. Bellamy and Murphy had decided to chill in Jasper’s bedroom while Monty and Jasper were in the basement, setting out the brownies they had made (they had made sure to put up a small note in the container specifying they were weed brownies so that way anybody that was driving wouldn’t eat any) and spreading confetti all over the room. They made sure all the controllers for the Xbox were actually there so they wouldn’t have to try searching for a third or fourth one when the party began, and set up a huge blanket fort in the corner.

           “Jas’, I think it still needs more blankets,” Monty joked after they had put the tenth blanket on the fort.

           “I don’t even think we have any more blankets,” Jasper responded, “Know what we need though? More food,” He concluded.

           “True,” Monty agreed. They weren’t trying to go to the store to buy food, so they walked upstairs and started knocking on the door of Jasper’s bedroom loudly.

           “Can you guys go get us more food? We’ve only got like two bags of flamin’ hots and like… a bag of chips,” Monty explained slowly, “And we’ve got a lot of people,” he finished, his eyes purposely avoiding looking at Murphy who only had a blanket covering him at the moment.

           “Murph’, come on, let’s get these two some more snacks,” Bellamy said before turning back to Monty, “We didn’t bring any money though, so…”

           “Here,” Jasper held out two twenty dollar bills he had shoved in his pocket, the one smart thing he had done in the past few hours.

           “Alright, we’ll be back in a few minutes with more snacks,” Bellamy told them with a small smile on his face. While he had never gotten close with either of them, he still enjoyed their company. He closed the door and told Murphy to get dressed, and that they would finish what they started earlier when they got back. Murphy had whined about it, but Bellamy cut off his whines with a harsh kiss on the lips and bit down on his lower lip and his previous whines turned into low moans as Bellamy purposely pulled back.

           “Such a tease,” Murphy pouted.

           “You know it,” Bellamy winked as he put his shoes on.

           The party started right around six, and everything had been set up with half an hour to spare. Tables had been set up with plenty of bowls of snacks on top of them, music was blaring from the speakers in the basement (the four of them had argued on what music to play first, but when Jasper, Murphy, and Monty all agreed electronic music was the best, Bellamy could hardly put up a fight), the TV was already on and Murphy was trying to perfect his Mortal Kombat skills, and Monty and Jasper were just waiting in the living room to hear the doorbell ring.

           The earliest arrivals were Octavia and Maya, who showed up together. Octavia pulled both of them in for a hug, and Maya joined in on the group hug before both of them headed downstairs. Octavia insisted on being the first person to play any video games against Murphy (their competitive streak was constantly flaring up at home and they were always in friendly competition with each other. It was just who they were), and Maya wanted to get to know Octavia’s family a bit better. After that the doorbell started ringing ever few minutes, Miller showing up in his beanie with Bryan next to him. Monty actually ran downstairs real quick to tell Murphy that Miller had arrived, and Murphy gave Bryan and Miller a look of approval and warned Bryan to never fuck with Miller or he would “fuck up his face.” Miller rolled his eyes at the comment and just gave Bryan a kiss on the cheek while flipping off Murphy. Roma arrived next with some girl named Mel, and they seemed to be best friends from the way they walked in with huge smiles on their faces as they talked about a book they had been reading recently. Eventually, everybody had arrived by around seven, and the party was officially a go.

           Monty and Jasper warned everybody that if they had brought alcohol to keep it on the down low and not to bring it upstairs or throw it away in a trash can, but to throw it in the garbage bag in the corner of the basement by where the table of food was at. They didn’t mind that people brought it, but they also didn’t want to have any drunken people going upstairs and unintentionally breaking anything. They also warned people that if they set foot in Jasper’s parent’s bedroom that they would immediately be kicked out of the party, and that they most definitely couldn’t use the excuse that “they didn’t know” because there was a piece of paper with “OFF LIMITS” written in sharpie taped to that door. Finally, they said to have fun and to party the night away as long as they wanted, but they all had to leave the next morning, hungover or not.

          Around the speakers a few people had formed a small dance circle, Monty and Jasper both included in this circle. Their playlist had started off with songs that only Monty, Jasper, and Murphy would listen to, but as the music started to gravitate towards the more popular music that was usually played at school dances, people had started dancing both with each other and on each other. Maya and Octavia were awkwardly dancing near each other, nervously swinging their hips a bit with the beat and moving their feet a little. Still, they were smiling at each other as they oddly danced, and Monty couldn’t be happier for them. At one point Murphy dragged Bellamy closer to the speakers when a certain song came on and started to grind on him, causing Bellamy to nearly lose his mind because how did Murphy learn how to do any of this? Bellamy turned Murphy around to face him after the song was over so he could press a heated kiss to his lips before dragging him upstairs to finish what they started earlier. Monty gave Jasper a faux disgusted look at this, causing Jasper to laugh quietly.

          Monty caught Miller and Bryan changing the game in the Xbox to one of the Call of Duty games so that Miller, Bryan, Harper, and Roe could all play a game together. Jasper asked if Monty wanted to go sit down for a second and watch them just play the game, and Monty nodded his approval. Roe and Miller had agreed that they should most definitely play on zombies mode, and Bryan and Harper both said they were fine with it. Monty and Jasper started to cheer them on and yell their support whenever they made it through a round. Roma had approached the weed brownies with caution, and made Mel pinky promise that she wouldn’t eat one so that they could get home before she tried the brownie. She ended up walking upstairs and sitting down on the living room couch to calm down after she realized that she could barely distinguish what was and wasn’t real at the moment, and Mel just ran her fingers through her hair to calm her down, concerned for her best friend and hoping that she would just fall asleep and wake up all better. Roma ended up falling asleep five minutes later, head leaned against Mel’s shoulder. Monty and Jasper were walking through the house, constantly checking to make sure everything was going fine and that nothing had been destroyed. So far, everything was going well. Everybody seemed to be enjoying themselves, and Monty let out a relieved sigh when he saw that the sign on the one off limits bedroom was still firmly taped to the door, and was even more relieved when he opened the door for a split second and didn’t see anybody in the room.

         The party continued throughout the night, some people leaving as early as ten because they had work or other plans tomorrow that required getting up early, some people leaving as late as one in the morning (such as Miller and Bryan), and some people just crashed and spent the night at their house (as in Roma, who was still asleep on the couch, as well as a few other people who had sprawled out on the floor). Once three in the morning hit, nearly everybody was asleep besides Octavia, Murphy, Bellamy, and Monty. Even Jasper had fallen asleep around 2:30 after Monty assured him many times that they would clean up early in the morning, that everybody still awake was trustworthy, and that everything was absolutely one hundred percent fine. Jasper was sleeping in his parent’s bedroom, figuring it would be fine as long as he remade the bed when he woke up, and Murphy and Bellamy were in Jasper’s bedroom still talking when Monty checked up on them.

         “You guys good?”

         “Yeah, just talkin’ a bit,” Murphy replied.

         “Alright, I’m goin’ to sleep, night,” Monty told them and left the door slightly cracked open as he went to go sleep next to Jasper. After putting on a pair of sweatpants, he lied down next to Jasper and lazily wrapped an arm around his side. Even though he was asleep, it was still a comfort to have him next to him, and it always seemed to make it easier for Monty to fall asleep.

         “Hey, Bel’, can I talk to you about something sort of uh, personal?” Murphy asked, voice quiet and threatening to start shaking.

         “I’m always here for you if you ever need to talk, you know that,” Bellamy replied, squeezing his shoulder gently for support.

         “I know, it’s just… I’m nervous,” Murphy gulped, taking deep breaths to calm himself down.

         “It’s okay to be nervous,” Bellamy said, “However, just know that no matter what it is, I won’t judge you, okay?”

         “Okay.”


	30. Spill

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tons of trigger warnings for discussions of self-harm in this chapter along with a bit of self-hatred. If you feel uncomfortable reading that I totally understand and I'll post a quick summary of the chapter in the end notes!
> 
> This chapter is one that sort of hit home for me while writing it and I really believe that this is an important chapter and really showcases sort of everything that Murphy's felt both in this universe and partially in canon, and while it may not be the most upbeat chapter I do think that if you're comfortable with reading this that you should. Reminder that if you ever feel depressed or suicidal and need to talk to people about these feelings, that there are many online resources where you can talk to people such as crisischat.org. I put a lot into this chapter despite its short length, and to me personally this chapter serves as a reminder that even if you're depressed, you can still love and be loved, and that's a message that I hope is picked up by anybody reading this. Next chapter is a much lighter one though that involves laser tag so that'll be a lot more fun!

            His heart rate was racing and he could swear he was able to hear his own blood pumping its way through his body. He felt that if he were touched he would burst open and everything inside of him would spill out and he would be destroyed. He felt trapped inside himself yet again, and he figured the only way to finally somewhat break free of his own self-created cage was to finally just tell Bellamy, and to just hope that by some miracle he wouldn’t reject him afterwards. He took another few deep breaths, making sure he wouldn’t start crying in the next few seconds, and asked Bellamy if he could go get him a water bottle really quick.

            “No problem, I’ll be right back,” Bellamy replied with a concerned look on his face.

            Murphy was ashamed of himself for this. For ever starting to self-harm and for hiding it for so long because he was afraid. He felt like keeping secrets was a terrible thing to do, and though he knew this was way different than most secrets, he felt guilty. _I’m lying to him,_ was a recurring thought whenever he was enjoying kissing Bellamy. He would always push it down deep inside him and just acted like everything was fine, because if he stopped soon anyways, then it wasn’t really a lie by omission, right? _Right now just isn’t the right time to tell him,_ was his usual mental justification for never telling him. Still, he needed to tell somebody about it. He needed help. Maybe not tons of help, but just somebody he could talk to whenever he felt like he was about to do something dangerous to himself so that he wouldn’t continue on his self-destructive path. He heard a quiet knocking on the already opened door, and motioned for Bellamy to come back into the room and to sit down on the bed. He took a gulp of water, letting the cold soothe his nerves as much as possible, and told him.

            “I cut myself,” Murphy mumbled and burst into tears. He curled up into a ball and wrapped his arms around his knees, and let his head rest in between his knees as he continued to cry. He hadn’t even looked to see Bellamy’s reaction, terrified that it would be one of disgust or hatred. He knew that logically, Bellamy probably wouldn’t respond in that way, but Murphy had built up this idea that if he ever told somebody it would end terribly and that the whole school would find out and everybody would ridicule him and he would have nobody there for him ever again.

            “Hey, it’s okay,” Bellamy whispered in a soothing voice, lightly wrapping an arm around Murphy’s back. Murphy froze up at first, and then realized what Bellamy said. _It’s okay._ Those words rang loud and clear in his mind. _He doesn’t hate me._ He looked up and saw Bellamy looking back at him. _He doesn’t hate me. It’s okay._ Murphy had never felt more loved in his life and let himself cry onto Bellamy’s shoulder until he finally felt drained and exhausted. The whole time Bellamy was rubbing small circles into his back, helping him calm down and realize that this wasn’t the end of the world like he thought it would be.

            “You don’t hate me?”

            “Not at all. I hate that somebody made you feel that terrible and I hate that you felt you had to resort to that, but I don’t hate you, not at all,” Bellamy assured him and pressed a gentle kiss on Murphy’s forehead.

            “Thanks,” Murphy sniffled, still in disbelief that the first person he had ever told didn’t hate him, and was instead actually there for him while he was falling apart. It was a good feeling. He wanted to put that feeling inside a bottle and be able to drink it up whenever he was feeling hopeless.

            “Can I ask why you started, or is that too much right now?”

            “It’s fine,” Murphy responded, “Long story short, my mom. One day she had just been yelling at me and I couldn’t take it so I popped out the blade from a pencil sharpener of all things, and I just… yeah,” He finished with a sigh.

            Bellamy nodded and pulled Murphy into a tight hug and Murphy felt the warmth of Bellamy’s arms around him and felt affection being poured into him, filling him to the brim with hopefulness.

            “Have you cut yourself recently? Could any of them get infected?” Bellamy asked, wanting to make sure that a tiny cut wouldn’t turn into something life-threatening in a day or two.

            “Haven’t in…” Murphy paused to think back on how long it had been, “Probably about three months.”

            “That’s amazing, Murphy. Really,” Bellamy told him, emphasizing how proud of him he was for managing to not hurt himself in months. He ran his fingers through Murphy’s hair, conveying to him in both words and actions that he would never leave him for this, and that he would help him through it, even if it did get hard at times.

            “I’m getting’ tired,” Murphy said, pulling back from Bellamy’s embrace, a sleepy grin on his face. He checked what time it was and it was nearly five in the morning, and he almost started to tear up again because Bellamy definitely should’ve just fallen asleep by now and shouldn’t have cared so much about him, but he did. He let himself smile at that thought and gave Bellamy a light kiss to the cheek as they both lied down facing each other. Murphy started running his fingers lazily through Bellamy’s curls, still loving the way they felt. Murphy pulled a blanket over both of them, mainly to warm himself up, but he had to admit it was also just really nice cuddling under a blanket with Bellamy.

            “Hey, Bell’… love you,” Murphy whispered, happy with the way Bellamy’s eyes seemed to light up like fireworks in the night sky.

            “Love you too,” Bellamy replied before they both fell asleep, happy and loved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick summary: Murphy finally confesses his past of self-harm to Bellamy despite his fears, and Bellamy is accepting and supportive of making sure that Murphy will hopefully recover in the future. The last two lines of dialogue are perfectly fine to read and end out the chapter on a happier note


	31. Not Throwing Away My Shot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so the title sounds way more dramatic than this chapter actually is (the title is also shamelessly taken from Hamilton) like seriously this chapter is a fun one about laser tag with one of my favorite #squads to write about (aka Harper, Roe, Octavia, and Maya). i'm honestly loving the slow build-up with the relationships between Roe/Harper and Octavia/Maya and I can tell you that both of those are most likely going to be endgame (and by most likely i mean there's like a 99% chance it'll happen okay) so i hope you all like those ships?? I also hope you guys like princess mechanic and a focus on Clarke because that's the next chapter ayyyyy.
> 
> On a slightly more serious note if you like this fic please comment or leave kudos it always makes me so happy to know what all of your thoughts are and I always try my best to quickly respond to comments c:

            Roe and Harper had ended up inviting Maya and Octavia for a night out at Monty and Jasper’s party, and were currently on their way to go play laser tag. The place guaranteed unlimited laser tag from nine to midnight for only fifteen dollars, and they all had a competitive streak and boundless energy on Friday nights. Roe had thrown their hair in a long braid to keep themself cool, and Harper threw her hair in a messy bun and laced her boots in a way she was sure they wouldn’t fall off. Roe drove them and was currently blaring the new Panic! At the Disco album they had bought last week. Harper was jamming out in the passenger seat and making tons of funny faces while taking videos to post on her snapchat story for the world to see.

            Maya and Octavia had Bellamy drop them off at laser tag and were waiting on Roe and Harper to arrive. Octavia kept checking her phone to see what time it was, and as the minutes kept ticking by she decided it would be a good idea to walk to the ice cream place in the same plaza, and Maya happily agreed.

            “Peanut butter chocolate chip is the best,” Maya smiled as she linked arms with Octavia, a familiar feeling of warmth and affection surrounding her as they skipped like little kids to the ice cream place. Octavia ordered two scoops of rocky road and once Maya had her cone they ate outside at one of the cold metal tables, the light breeze of a nice April night making everything feel just right. Maya twirled her hair and licked the ice cream off her lips as Octavia looked up at the sky, in awe at how pretty the stars looked. Her blue eyes traveled down to meet brown eyes and her lips unconsciously parted. Once she realized, she blushed lightly, hoping Maya wouldn’t notice her rosy pink cheeks.

            “We should probably head back, you know, in case Roe showed up,” Octavia coughed, refocusing on the plans they had already made for that night.

            Roe, Harper, Maya, and Octavia all went up to the front counter and asked for the fifteen dollar deal, and all of them got fluorescent orange wristbands placed on them, all of them just a tiny bit too tight for comfort. Harper sighed and Octavia rolled her eyes but they just went with it, not caring enough to ask for new ones.

            “Alright, who’s ready to get this party started?” Roe asked rhetorically, a huge grin on their face.

            “Everybody, now let’s go wait until they start the next game of laser tag,” Harper replied, dragging Roe along by their wrist. Maya shrugged and walked over to the viewing area with them, Octavia trailing close behind. Maya saw people running up stairs with ease and sneaking around corners only to find that somebody else was already waiting for them. Octavia’s focus was on whoever was shooting through a window on the second floor and was managing to confuse people whenever they hit them. She snickered to herself when said person on the bottom level ran as fast as they could away from whatever danger they thought they were in. Harper mainly felt bad for whoever decided to wear a white t-shirt and was always getting found in the ultraviolet lights no matter how hard they tried to hide. Roe looked down at their own neon green shirt and sighed loudly, causing Maya to laugh.

            “Alright, how many of you have never been here before?” The person running laser tag asked. A few hands were hesitantly raised, one of them Maya’s, and they launched into a quick explanation of how everything worked, including how exactly to shoot other people, the rules (all of them mentally knew that the biggest rule they would definitely break was the “no cursing” rule), and where to find her if your vest was either not working or there were any problems in general. Maya nodded along, understanding everything perfectly fine, and then they got split up into teams, all four of them luckily on the same side. Everybody rushed to squeeze through the doors and grab their vests, Harper pointing out how ridiculous all the names sounded, and Octavia retorting back with “it’s pirate themed, okay!”

            The electronic countdown from ten was the only warning they had before the game began. Harper, Roe, and Maya had decided to split up, but Octavia much preferred being a lone wolf of sorts and split off from the others and ran up the ramp leading up to the second floor, taking the strategy of the person she saw earlier and finding a window to crouch by and shoot through. After checking behind her and beside her multiple times, she peeped through the window and realized at least two people were easily within range, and pulled down the trigger to shoot at them, silently cheering when she managed to hit both of them. _Well, when you aren’t moving it’s pretty damn easy to hit you._ She whipped her head around to make sure nobody would see her moving, and she continued creeping around the second floor to execute what she believed to be her flawless strategy.

            Roe and Harper were near the outer wall of the arena, back to back as they slowly walked around, shooting at anybody that came near them. Roe gave Harper a high-five after an impressive shot around a corner that they knew they definitely couldn’t make themselves no matter how hard they tried. Harper smiled, glad she was still on top of her game. She was used to playing whenever her older brother would invite her along to play with his friends, and she had gained a lot of skill over the past year, which was now paying off tremendously. Roe tapped Harper on her shoulder twice, their signal for multiple people ahead, and Harper spun around and started taking more shots, nailing almost everybody and Roe picking up the people she couldn’t get.

            Maya ended up splitting off after a minute or so, determined to learn the setup of the arena so she could have better luck during the next game. She would purposely walk in the middle of a large group of the other team, throwing her hands up in defeat as she kept on moving. After five minutes or so she felt confident enough in knowing what the place was like and started sprinting around after making sure her shoes were laced up so she wouldn’t trip and fall on accident. As luck would have it, as she was rushing around a corner, Octavia was running down the ramp at the same time and they ended up crashing into each other. It wasn’t painful, but it definitely put them in an awkward situation, especially since Maya _really_ liked Octavia. She pushed her hair back and mumbled a quick sorry.

            “It’s fine. Come on, let’s go kick some ass,” Octavia winked and held out her hand as she tilted her head to signal going back up the ramp.

            “Sounds like a plan,” Maya replied, taking Octavia’s hand in her own, her heart beating faster from both the running and the feeling inside her she knew she could never shake. They both crouched next to each other near a corner window, their shared body heat flowing between them, tension thick in the air. Octavia was focused half on trying to get in a good shot, half focused on Maya not even a whole foot away from her. She glanced over at Maya who had her eyebrows narrowed in determination, and gulped.

            “Got ‘em!” Maya exclaimed in a whisper, giving Octavia a fist-bump in celebration. Their celebration was short lived as somebody snuck up behind them seemingly out of nowhere and they had to run again as the one minute warning was announced. After they successfully lost whoever was following them in a few seconds (the person looked like they were maybe ten, if Maya were being generous), they sat down next to each other and just hid behind a barrier for the remainder of the time, Octavia purposely scooting closer to Maya and hoping she wouldn’t find it weird. Instead of moving away, Maya leaned her head on Octavia’s shoulder, a huge smile on her face as she let one hand fall palm up on Octavia’s leg, an obvious offer to hold her hand. Octavia blushed and covered her hand with her own, linking their fingers together as it was announced that the game was over.

            Their night of fun continued into the night, with occasional pauses in the action for restroom breaks and sipping down water to stay hydrated. Eventually the night drew to an end once Bellamy arrived at quarter ‘til midnight, and Octavia pulled everybody into a group hug before her and Maya left, satisfied with how the night went, and looking forward to more nights like this one in the future.


	32. Stressed Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so like... listen i didn't want this fic to end up like most TV shows and eventually turn into just focusing on characters and completely ignoring that they do indeed still have school, so this chapter is basically Clarke actually doing some school stuff along with a little bit of happy princess mechanic thrown in so hopefully you enjoy it!! (and yes trust and believe that the FRQ mentioned is accurate and is most definitely stolen from review stuff that I myself got last year in APUSH which is truly a #struggle)
> 
> Next chapter is similar stuff but from Bellamy's point of view with some murphamy thrown in and Wells is actually in the chapter (mainly bc I'm still bitter about his death lmao) so yeah you've got that to look forward to! Please comment if you liked this I thrive off of comments in all honesty haha

            After spring break had finished, Clarke had resigned herself to studying, possibly to death, for her AP tests. She had three AP tests: US History, Language & Composition, and Physics. However, her teacher had failed to explain practically everything in physics, and her self-teaching fell apart after about two weeks due to not having enough time to teach herself that on top of keeping up with other schoolwork, so she had decided to not waste money on that test. Still, she had two to study for. She had downloaded an app on her phone so she could play trivia at any time, and was currently challenging some random person halfway across the world in who knew more about presidents. The questions ranged from some that were easier, like who was the current vice president, to some more obscure ones where she just had to guess. Clarke knew that this wasn’t necessarily the best way to study, but it was more fun for now.

            The fun studying ended about two days later when her teacher started offering before school reviews for the US test, and Clarke started dragging herself to them, not even caring that she had to show up almost an hour before school to get to them. She knew she needed to review the knowledge, and while the teacher was reviewing, she was writing down notes and how to answer the free response question that he was talking about that day. She was nothing if not determined to pass, and she was aiming for the prized score of a five on her test, even if she did have to work hard for it. To her, it was worth it.

            She walked into the second review and saw two other people from her class in there: Luna and Lincoln. Clarke knew both of them were also hard-working people who generally kept to themselves in the middle of the classroom and raised their hands every once in a while to answer a question. It felt natural to see those two show up, and Clarke gave both of them a friendly wave and a small smile as she sat down and got out her binder and pencil bag. She unzipped her bag and got out a pen. She started chewing on the cap of it out of nervousness and tapped her foot out of habit and also anxiety. The teacher walked in the room and turned on the Smartboard to show the three of them the FRQ they were going over that day. It was one requiring discussion of how either the Northwest Ordinance, Missouri Compromise, or the acquisition of Mexican territory ultimately led to the civil war. Of course, Clarke’s mind at first went to thinking about how Captain America: Civil War was coming out within the next month, but she quickly refocused on the actual civil war, which she also thought was pretty neat.

            “Would anybody like to try explaining how one of these led to the civil war?”

            Luna raised her hand shyly and gave a sufficient answer that the teacher added onto, which made her feel at least slightly accomplished. Clarke was writing down notes, hoping that because she was writing things down yet again that they would stick in her mind for the test. She had heard from a few different people that it always got them better grades on tests than when they didn’t write down that many notes, so she thought it was at least worth a shot. After about half an hour other students started coming into the teacher’s classroom, and Clarke left five minutes before she had to be in her first bell, knowing she would make it with probably two minutes to spare. She let out a stressed sigh as she sat down in her first bell, wanting to just take a nap. Luckily, at this point in the year, all her teachers had become much more lenient about having phones out in class, so she hid hers lazily behind her purse, made sure it was on silent, and started texting Raven.

**Clarke: Ughhhh get me out of this class**

**Raven: wish i could. just hang in there you’ll be finee**

**Clarke: the real question right now: should i take a nap or nah?**

**Raven: well, how important is the class?**

**Clarke: we’ve been watching videos for the past two days**

**Raven: there’s your answer, night**

Clarke chuckled to herself and put her head down on her desk, pulling her hair back in a loose ponytail so it wouldn’t end up a mess when she woke up. She felt herself falling asleep and started to dream. It was a dream that made her feel filled with joy.

            _Clarke and Raven were sitting on a bench at the park. It was bright and sunny outside, and everything around them was a vibrant green or an earthy brown. The bench was grey. They were holding hands, fingers interlaced. Raven’s hair; up in a ponytail. Clarke’s; down and wavy. She knew it was summertime. They were smiling at each other, and Clarke could hear rushing water in the distance. Were they near a creek? Either way, it felt picture-esque. Clarke leaned in, softly pressing her own lips to Raven’s, her lips tasting sweet, like they had just eaten ice cream. They kept smiling at each other, only occasionally leaning back to catch their breath. She could hear children laughing and playing a game of tag somewhere in the park. She felt happy._

The bell rang and Clarke wearily lifted her head up. She wanted to just be done with this school year already. She went from class to class, enjoying the little moments of hope in each one. The windows were open again in physics for the third time since winter break, and she let her arms dangle out of them for a minute before class started, loving how the sun felt on her skin. In history, she laughed at a joke that a kid in the back of the class made that only her and a few other people heard. In english class, Clarke was glad that they were being assigned a book to read, and from what she could glimpse from the summary, it seemed like _Catcher in the Rye_ wasn’t going to be too bad. In fact, she thought she might even enjoy it. Still, she kept reminding herself that her first test was in sixteen school days, or in three weeks and a day if she counted weekends. That gave her at most twenty two days to study, and she was stressed.

            Two weeks passed and she had eight days left before her test. She had only hung out with Raven outside of school once in the past two weeks, constantly apologizing that she had to study so much, but Raven just said that it was okay and that they would hang out a lot more after testing was done.

            “Besides, I’m still actually teaching myself physics and I’ll hopefully start my own review in a day or two, so I totally understand the stress,” She had said and given Clarke a solid hug, figuring she needed both a hug and also a break from school if possible.

            “You’re the best,” Clarke had mumbled into her shoulder, letting herself be held up by her girlfriend. She knew she would get a good score, and she knew that she could do it, but it still felt nice to know that she had somebody by her side to support her through it all. She had relaxed, truly relaxed, that night for the first time since spring break. She had taken Raven out to get milkshakes, and they had started to binge-watch Breaking Bad while lying in bed. Clarke had felt so much relief that night, and she wanted to hold onto that feeling for as long as she could.


	33. Spiral

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to put Wells in this fic so I did that and also put some murphamy into this and that's basically a summary of this chapter so yeah. Next chapter is complete jonty filler with mentions of Maya bc of course.
> 
> also expect really frequent updates because my own high school career is coming to an end at an alarmingly soon rate and i really want to have this finished by the day i graduate, which gives me eight more days to finish this up (whoa). Please, please, please comment if you're still reading this and have any thoughts on any part of this fic because it's always wonderful hearing feedback c:

            Three days. Three days until he found out whether or not he actually learned the material. Three days until his Calculus AB AP test. Bellamy hoped he would pass. He wasn’t even aiming for a five at this point, was praying that the curve would be excellent, and hoped he could rely on himself enough to get a three or maybe, if he was lucky, a four. He had paid the most attention in that class that year, coming in early to try figuring out problems from the homework the night before that he didn’t understand, and he felt that he had a good grip on the major concepts. He knew how to derive a function, how to integrate one, and plenty of other rules that he hoped he wouldn’t blank on in the middle of the test. They had been reviewing in class for the past two weeks, doing problems on the board and going over previous tests, and Bellamy could usually get a bit above half of the problems right, which he knew meant that he could probably pass with a solid three. Still, he couldn’t help but wish he had gone in early for just a little more help, had asked just a few more questions in class, had spent a little more time making sure he fully understood the problems on the homework instead of looking up the answers online, and he just wished he could understand it as well as this kid in his class named Wells did. Wells understood pretty much everything, and he envied that.

            Bellamy was sitting in his chair at the back of the room, waiting for the teacher to read out the next problem, when he turned to Wells. He really needed to study, and figured if anybody in the class could help him possibly make some connection that he had missed earlier in the year in a span of four days, it was Wells. So, he had decided that morning he was going to see if Wells wanted to study with him at the library after school that day. Murphy had teased him about it and called him a “huge nerd”, but said he would probably just hang out there with him and read comic books off in a corner.

            “Hey, uh, Wells,” Bellamy started. Wells turned his head, eyebrows raised in curiosity. “I, uh… the test in coming up really soon and I definitely need to study this stuff, so maybe we could study together? You always seem to really understand everything and always seem so nice when explaining things and obviously you don’t have to but I thought it could be cool,” Bellamy rambled, not used to asking classmates he barely knew for really anything. “I could bring chips and something to drink,” He shrugged his shoulders, finishing his thought.

            “I’d be up for it,” Wells replied. Bellamy let out a small sigh of relief, nervousness gone. “Today after school sound fine?”

            “Sounds awesome!,” Bellamy responded. “How about we meet at the library at about four, if that’s okay with you?”

            “Yeah, that’s fine with me,” Wells nodded his head.

            So Bellamy drove to the library after school, Murphy sitting passenger seat in his car eating a bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, Bellamy giving him a feigned look of offense. He couldn’t stand eating more than a few of them but for some reason everybody at their school loved them and it was a given that in every class, there would be at least one person just snacking on them, regardless of what was going on. Bellamy rolled down his window at the same time Murphy did, and they both looked at each other with a grin on their faces. Murphy turned up the CD he had put in earlier and started tapping his foot in beat with the music, even going so far as to fake air drum at certain parts in the song, smiling the whole time. Bellamy rolled his eyes, thinking about how much of a dork his boyfriend was as the wind breezed through the curls in his hair.

            Bellamy walked through the library door a few minutes later, knowing that he was still half an hour early but not caring one bit. Murphy was with him, and they could undoubtedly get into some sort of minor trouble within that half hour, depending on how bored Murphy was and how much Bellamy resisted giving into Murphy’s impulsive behavior. Today, however, Murphy was perfectly content picking out some comics and just reading them in a corner while drinking a can of pop, and Bellamy was fine sitting in the chair next to him, casually messing with his hair while scrolling through Twitter on his phone. Bellamy let his mind wander to the future, and realized that he only had about a month left of high school. He already knew he was going off to college to study political science, but had no clue about Murphy’s plans. He couldn’t help but feel bad for never asking. _Is Murphy even going to college? Is he going to just get a job? What if he ends up with a shitty job he hates? Are we still even going to be able to stay together?_ The last question he asked himself was the one that made him tense up, and Murphy noticed.

            “Hey, everything okay?” Murphy asked, putting down the Hawkeye comic he had been reading.

            “Yeah, just… Can we talk later tonight?” Bellamy asked, about to leave it at that before he remembered that Murphy hated that question being asked with no clarification, “It’s nothing bad, just… wondering about some things in the future, I guess.”

            “We can definitely talk later tonight,” Murphy replied, grabbing Bellamy’s hand and squeezing it gently.

            Wells walked in about thirty seconds later with books, a notebook (Bellamy assumed it was either completely empty or filled to the brim with notes), and plenty of pencils in his hands. He placed all these things on a small, round wooden table and motioned for Bellamy to come join him. Bellamy waved Murphy off and jokingly told him to behave himself, to which Murphy mock-saluted him.

            “Alright so where did you want to get started?”

            “Theorems. I still don’t know how to apply Rolle’s Theorem or the Mean Value Theorem to save my life, or my grade, and I figure that I can hopefully learn that the quickest,” Bellamy told him, and Wells responded by flipping through his notebook and explaining how to apply the theorems to problems thoroughly. _He would be an amazing teacher,_ Bellamy thought as he finally started to grasp the concept. Wells pulled out his calculus book and told Bellamy to do two practice problems for it, and though Bellamy groaned at first, he did them anyways and checked his answers in the back of the book. One of them he got right, the other he got wrong. Luckily, Wells walked him through the problem he got wrong so he could correct his mistake, and Bellamy felt just a bit more relieved. They continued on like this for a while, occasionally cracking a joke or taking sips from their drinks they had brought, and Bellamy felt like he might actually attain a passing grade by the time Wells announced he had to leave.

            “Dude, thanks for helping me out,” Bellamy said, placing one hand on Wells’ shoulder.

            “It’s no problem at all. Hope you pass!” Wells responded in his typical cheery manner.

            Later that night, Bellamy was sitting in bed, finishing up the last bits of his homework, and Murphy sat next to him playing some game on his phone where you had to eat other snakes to become a bigger snake (Murphy said it was called slither.io and was way too addicting). Murphy had curled himself into a ball due to Bellamy’s homework being spread across the bed, and he was just waiting for him to finish scribbling down the physics homework that he had copied from the internet. Bellamy was writing down the answers, not even close to knowing how people could understand the problems, and was taking pictures after to send to Roma, who also despised how little their teacher had taught them.

            “Hey, Bel’, you said you had something you wanted to talk about,” Murphy mumbled a few minutes after Bellamy had set down his pencil and thrown his binders back in his bookbag for the night.

            “I was just thinking about the future earlier today and just… how far do you want to take this?” He gestured to the both of them. He could feel his heart sinking into the bottom of his stomach when Murphy didn’t immediately reply, looking at him desperately for some sort of answer.

            “I, uh, don’t really know,” Murphy admitted, “I love you and I want to be with you for as long as possible but that’s really all I know,” He shrugged, moving closer to Bellamy so he could lean his head on his shoulder, needing some sort of comfort right now. While he could deal with somebody leaving him, he didn’t want to. He had been doing good recently, really good, and he feared that this would send him into another spiral of depression no matter how hard he tried to fight it. _Maybe I really don’t deserve him, maybe I should just end this before I get hurt. Besides, he would be fine after a month or two anyway, right? No, I don’t want to._ The constant battle in his mind frustrated Murphy at times, because he knew he wanted Bellamy to be by his side for a long time, and he knew that he loved him. But he also knew that the people you loved most were the ones that could hurt you the most, and he was afraid that their relationship would eventually go up in flames and he would be part of the ash.

            “Hey, it’s okay,” Bellamy assured him, “I love you, too. We don’t have to have all the answers right now, yeah? We can talk more about this later,” He started petting Murphy’s hair, concern in his eyes as he looked at him. He knew things were going to get rough, but he also knew that they could work through this, somehow, someway. For now, knowing that they both wanted their relationship to last was enough.


	34. Accelerando

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what do u mean i'm starting another chapter with a music term no i would never do that ever. okay legit tho it's an orchestra filler chapter with plenty of jonty and i just felt like i needed to bring these two up again it's been so long since there's been a jonty chapter tbh
> 
> next chapter is... a secret for now lmao. I will say that it involves Bryan/Miller as well as Murphamy if that gives anybody a possible idea as to what it could be. I promise you'll love it though so yeah (also i was not joking about these updates coming quick this is the second update today whoops)

            Their last concert for the year had been played, and now Monty, Jasper, and Maya had moved on to playing the graduation music. They opened up the graduation folder and dreaded finding the exact same repertoire that they had played last year, along with the addition of one new song. Monty groaned and complained to Jasper loudly, thankful that the teacher was still in her office (probably looking over something involving scheduling). Maya was jumping for joy at the chance to learn tons of new and fairly easy songs in the span of about two weeks. Jasper pulled out “Pomp and Circumstance” and felt himself die a little inside. Last year the current seniors had started a betting pool on how many times they would have to repeat the song, and it ended up being seven times. It was rumored that there were at least twenty-five dollars thrown in, but Jasper felt that even that wasn’t a good enough reward for playing through the mind-numbingly boring piece they were being forced to play. Still, he would play, and so would Monty just so that they could get out of taking the final for that class.

            Monty covered his bow hairs in rosin and tuned up as the teacher walked out of her office and into the room, looking frustrated. What she was frustrated about nobody had any idea, but they all knew better than to mess with her on her bad days, so Jasper didn’t even complain like he usually did when they started getting out the music and practicing.

            “Just work in sectionals today, I’ve got some things I need to sort out,” She told them and dismissed herself. Monty smirked at Jasper, who raised an eyebrow. They both knew that nothing of value was getting done today, at least not in their section. Monty glanced at Maya and saw her marking up her music, pencil making plenty of circles on the page. The violin section was playing diligently, and he almost felt bad that they always had the hardest parts. _Hey, they chose it, not me._ Jasper tapped Monty on the shoulder to get his attention.

            “Meet me in the bathroom in five?” Jasper whispered into his ear. Monty figured that he just wanted to skip with him, and couldn’t completely blame him, especially since they weren’t doing anything.

            “Why does it have to be in the bathroom? They’re so nasty,” Monty whined, “Fine,” he sighed as Jasper got up from his chair to go ask the teacher for a bathroom pass. Seconds later he was walking out of the door and gave Monty a wink as he exited. Monty tapped his foot and plucked on the strings of his viola as he waited for five minutes to pass. He ended up figuring out the beginning notes of a song he had been listening to for the past week and felt impressed with himself. He set his viola down carefully on his chair, stood up, and asked the teacher for a bathroom pass.

            “Wait until Jasper gets back,” She commanded, giving him a knowing look.

            “I really need to go though,” Monty pleaded, a faux frown on his face.

            “Just wait another minute or two, okay?”

            “Please, I don’t think I can hold it much longer,” Monty argued. Luckily, whenever their teacher was frustrated she was much more lenient with her students, and scribbled a pass to the bathroom for him. Monty thanked her and went to go find Jasper in their usual spot: the second story bathroom in the back of the school. They figured out it was the cleanest one (although it still was sort of gross), and also the one that was usually emptiest.

            “Jas’, come out,” Monty said, trying to keep his voice low but also making sure Jasper could still hear him. One of the stall doors opened and Jasper dropped a quick kiss on Monty’s lips.

            “Hey,” Jasper grinned, ruffling Monty’s hair.

            “Hey you too,” Monty replied. “So, what are we going to do?” He asked.

            “Hmmmm, could make out, could also snack on these delicious brownies,” Jasper responded, placing emphasis on the word delicious.

            “Both sound pretty good,” Monty responded, the smirk on his face growing larger by the second. “However, if I get high I probably can’t drive home from school, so I think I’m going to go with the first option,” He decided.

            Monty pressed his lips to Jasper’s with intensity, wanting to make the most out of them skipping class. The kiss was hurried, and sloppy, and everything he could’ve ever wanted. He bit down on Jasper’s bottom lip harshly, savoring the sound Jasper made because of it.

            “Keep it down, wouldn’t want to get caught,” Monty teased. Jasper quieted him by sticking his tongue in Monty’s mouth, causing Monty to gasp softly before opening his mouth up a bit more. Their tongues danced together as the kiss grew more heated, Monty pulling on Jasper’s curls and Jasper digging his nails into Monty’s back. Monty heard loud footsteps getting closer to the bathroom and quickly pulled away from the kiss, still slightly paranoid since they’d been caught before and had to serve a detention for it. After he heard the footsteps lighten and grow more distant, he pressed his lips back to Jasper’s feather light, smile on his face. He pulled away for a second, Jasper looking confused until Monty started trailing kisses down his neck. Jasper had never felt closer to heaven than in that moment. Monty started sucking lightly on Jasper’s collarbone, not trying to leave a mark, but knowing that Jasper probably wouldn’t care even if he did. Jasper started cursing under his breath as he realized his phone was vibrating in his back pocket. He checked, and it was a text message from Maya telling them to get back down there and that the teacher was starting to grow suspicious.

          **Jasper:**   **Thanks, Maya! Be back down there in two minutes**

**Maya: No problem!**

They walked into the orchestra room doors in exactly one minute and forty-five seconds and picked up their instruments to start actually playing the graduation music. Jasper was tempted to start playing some of the pop music they got last year, but he knew that their teacher would recognize it and tell him to stop playing it. So, he started playing his favorite piece from last year, occasionally pausing to scroll through Tumblr. His phone was oh so cleverly hidden behind his instrument, which was to say not at all hidden, but he didn’t care. It was end of the year and there wasn’t anything incredibly important going on. They packed up their instruments, Monty making sure to wipe off his strings so they wouldn’t be coated in rosin the next day, and the bell eventually rang, not soon enough for either of their liking. Monty was already counting down the days left of the school year, and just wished it would end already. He wanted it to be summer, wanted to have tons of time to do whatever he wanted, wanted to be out of their school that had no air conditioning. Most of all, he just wanted to be free.


	35. Capture the Moment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hahaha so listen the title of this chapter was actually the little slogan for my school's homecoming dance this year and it just so happened to work perfectly with this chapter because... that's right this chapter is mostly about prom, surprise! weirdly enough when i was plotting this story i completely left out prom and this chapter was supposed to be way more about bellamy getting ready to graduate (which i mean i have mentioned a little in the more recent chapters and it's mentioned a little bit in this one) but i was like nah i'm just going to make this mainly about prom because honestly it's really memorable and yeah that. Next chapter is also a little bit secret but a certain couple does actually become a thing and I think you'll like that (hopefully)!!
> 
> thank you to everybody that has commented on this like it's making me want to keep writing this and finish it because i know people are actually enjoying this like it's so great c:

                “Holy shit can you believe we’re out of school in a week and a half?” Bellamy asked Murphy, still not quite believing it himself. His AP tests were over, he was finishing up his final calculus project (which was easy and was mainly just copying from his notes earlier in the year), and they had gotten their caps and gowns today. It all felt almost surreal to him. He had always been excited to get out of high school, even if it most likely meant leaving football in his past (as great as their team was, their school wasn’t known largely for football), but now that their last day was approaching, he realized that he was nervous to leave. Bellamy got used to the normal routine of school, passing from class to class and memorizing vocabulary terms, doing homework both at home and usually during at least one of his classes during the day, getting up to pack his own lunch because the school food only tastes so good for so long… everything was so structured.

            “I know like… whoa,” Murphy replied, feeling relieved that he would finally be out of this place in a week. They still had graduation rehearsal and actual graduation, but in a little over a week he would finally be completely free for the first time in his life. He had no clue what he would do with his newfound freedom, but he knew that whatever he did, he would make sure he enjoyed it. He was still afraid that his mom would come after him one day, but was able to let that fear fade away with each day that she didn’t call. She had called him a month ago, begging him to come back to her. He could hear her crying on the phone and felt bad, but luckily Bellamy was by his side reminding him that he wasn’t responsible for taking care of her, that she was the parent and he was the child. Murphy had hung up on her and cried for a few minutes, Bellamy holding him close for support.

            “It feels so-”

            “-Weird?” Murphy finished for him.

            “Yeah.”

            Bellamy stood up, pacing around his room while still trying to wrap his mind around the fact that they would be out of school in a mere week and a half. Murphy relaxed and played Miller back in Trivia Crack, almost happy that the game was making a comeback. He got stuck with a sports question, missed it (he was convinced nobody actually could answer half the sports questions), and started a game against Bryan, wanting a rematch from earlier.

            “Like, it just always felt like we would have more time, you know?” Bellamy wondered aloud. The whole year had seemed to drag on until spring break hit and then the days seemed to speed by so quick. He wished he had a pause button at times to fully capture some moments. He really just wished time could slow down, especially this weekend. Prom was tomorrow, and Bellamy had asked Murphy out with a poster that he had enlisted Octavia to help him with, and Murphy had practically jumped into his arms while saying yes a million times.

            “And also prom is tomorrow and that feels so weird,” Bellamy said, Murphy half listening, half trying to kick Miller’s ass in Trivia Crack. It was a close 3-4 match, Miller winning, and Murphy was determined to win.

            “Also what time are we leaving tomorrow to get to Miller’s for dinner?”

            “Well he said dinner starts at five, so probably like four-thirty,” Murphy responded.

            “Alright, cool,” Bellamy nodded his head, mentally storing away that information, even though he knew Murphy would remind him again tomorrow if needed. Miller was having a small group of people over at his house for prom dinner, nobody wanting to make reservations at some restaurant and spend tons of money when they could all just hang out together and eat plenty of food and not have to worry about any restaurants being overbooked. Bellamy was visibly excited about prom, Murphy secretly filled with joy to the brim about going with somebody that loved him.

            After making sure their bowties were properly clipped on and their suits looked fine, Bellamy and Murphy got in the car to head over to Miller’s house for dinner. They had all decided on chicken alfredo for dinner, making sure the chicken was separate because somebody’s date was a vegetarian. Bellamy was in charge of bringing along cups, and also volunteered to just bring along stuff to drink while he was at it. He had gotten added to the group text and one person wanted lemonade, two people wanted just plain coca-cola, and everybody else just said they’d be fine with whatever, so they had also picked up generic orange soda.

            Murphy rang the doorbell an annoyingly high amount of times, a smirk wide on his face as Bryan opened the door, swinging it so hard that it almost hit Murphy in the face.

            “Nate, they’re here!” Bryan yelled.

            “Who’s here?” Miller shouted back.

            “Murphy and Bel’,” He told him.

            “Only I get to call him Bel’,” Murphy pouted, “Well, and his sister, I guess,” He finished while stepping into Miller’s house, leaving his bag and shoes near the front door. Miller, Bryan, Murphy, and Bellamy were all staying the night at Miller’s house after prom, so Murphy had packed up sweatpants, a comfortable t-shirt, and his phone charger, figuring he wouldn’t need anything beyond that.

            Miller greeted Murphy with a complicated handshake they had come up with last year, both of them laughing when they still remembered all of it. Bellamy had a look of amusement on his face, and was just glad that Murphy was genuinely smiling and laughing more and more recently. They all walked into the kitchen, smelling the food before they even saw it. Miller opened up the oven and placed the dish on the counter, telling everybody to feel free to dig in, and added on that he actually probably made too much and begged everybody to take plenty. Bryan chuckled quietly, teasing Miller about how he warned him they were making way too much, and Miller shut him up with a chaste kiss on the lips. Bryan rolled his eyes when Murphy wolf-whistled at them.

            After dinner, at least five thousand pictures their parents forced them into, and a confusing drive, they arrived at prom. They all flashed their prom tickets at the people checking and went straight to the dance floor. Despite somehow managing to get lost twice, even with a GPS, they had still gotten there five minutes before it started, made abundantly clear by the lack of people they saw in front of them. Murphy decided to snack on the chips that were laid out, not even that hungry but also not able to resist salt and vinegar chips. He jokingly tried handing chips to Bellamy, knowing that he absolutely hated salt and vinegar chips.

            “What flavor?” Bellamy asked accusingly. Murphy couldn’t hold back his laughter. “Were you seriously trying to give me salt and vinegar chips? Get those sin chips away from me,” Bellamy feigned disgust and then started laughing along with Murphy.

            The music started playing louder and Bryan dragged them all out to the dance floor, Murphy initially refusing and saying he didn’t want to embarrass himself, but he eventually gave in when Bellamy promised that he would make it up to him later that night. Murphy moved his hips and tapped his foot to the beat, swaying to the music, trying to not draw too much attention to himself. Bellamy liked his lips slowly, making sure Murphy caught him doing it, and started dancing to the music only inches in front of him, so close that he could feel his breath on him. One song changed into a different one, one that had heavier bass in it and was perfect for grinding to. Out of the corner of his eye Murphy noticed some guy just standing stiff as a brick while his (presumed) date grinded on him, and almost started laughing again. Almost. Then Bellamy started slowly grinding up against him and Murphy just rolled with it, mouthing the words to himself as he held Bellamy’s waist lightly. The song finished too soon for Murphy’s liking and he dragged Bellamy over to a corner that was completely empty, Bellamy immediately getting the message without a word being spoken between the two of them.

            Bellamy pinned Murphy up against the wall and started teasing him with neck kisses. He knew Murphy went wild for them, and planned to use it to his advantage as much as possible. Murphy let his head rest against the wall to further expose his neck, silently telling Bellamy to keep going, and he did. He started kissing lower and lower, taking off Murphy’s bowtie and unbuttoning the top button of his shirt so he could kiss the bottom of his throat, loving the sound Murphy made when he did.

            “Bel’,” Murphy whined, voice a few pitches higher than usual.

            “What?” Bellamy asked, pulling a way for a few seconds to look Murphy in the eye.

            “Uh, nothing. Just keep going,” Murphy replied quickly, nearly breathless. Bellamy took that as an invitation to press his lips against Murphy’s, who quickly deepened it, trying to pour out every bit of love and lust he had into their kiss. Murphy wrapped his arms around Bellamy’s waist, pulling him even closer to him. After a few minutes of heated kissing, Murphy was whimpering Bellamy’s name every time his lip was bitten, every time his hair was pulled, every time Bellamy ran his nails down his back.

            “Wait, are they playing a slow song right now?” Bellamy asked, breaking the mood for a second.

            “I think so, yeah,” Murphy replied, not knowing whether to be annoyed or ecstatic at the moment. Then Bellamy wrapped his arms around his waist and leaned his head on his shoulder and Murphy decided on not at all annoyed and completely in love and happy. Bellamy swayed back and forth slowly, neither of them actually knowing how to slow dance, and about half way through lifted his head to look at Murphy. Though they had just been making out, the mood had definitely changed. Murphy gave Bellamy a softer, gentler kiss than before. They both seemed to melt into it, knowing that this was a moment that neither of them could ever forget. Murphy grinned when they pulled away for a few seconds, touching his lips, all of it still feeling like a dream come true. He wanted to capture this moment and hold onto it forever.

            The night went on, Miller and Bryan dancing with each other in a large group of people, Bellamy snacking on rock candy, Murphy dragging Bellamy into the photobooth that had been set up (Bellamy smiled at how their pictures turned out, and immediately tucked them into his wallet), and everybody just having an overall amazing time. Bellamy wished the night would never end.


	36. Stars Twinkling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i could just ramble on about how cute and fluffy this is and how happy i was to finally be able to write this chapter (i promised myself i would make this ship incredibly slow burn in comparison to some other ships) and i just found this one really enjoyable to write. i just have a lot of feelings about maya/octavia in this fic and i really hope that you all feel the same and like this chapter haha. Next one is Raven focused with some princess mechanic in it and also i'm getting so close to finishing this it feels weird omg
> 
> please, please comment if you liked this i thrive off of positive comments even if they're just like "this was great" like seriously that'll make my whole day a little bit brighter c:

          **Maya:**   **hey, can we talk about something? all good things, promise**

**Octavia: yeah totally! when do you want to hang out?**

**Maya: i’m good with later today if that works for u**

**Octavia: sounds good with me! my house or yours?**

**Maya: i don’t care either way but i guess mine**

**Octavia: i’ll be over in ten!**

Maya heard knocking on her front door and grinned. She shook out any nervousness in her, double checked that her hair looked okay, and told herself in the mirror that she could do this. _But what if she doesn’t feel the same way? What if she just wants to be friends and finds it weird or something and what if she hates me?_ She bit her lip and let out a sigh. She could do this. She opened the door to see Octavia with her hair down and not in any sort of braid for possibly the only time in her whole entire life, and felt her heart skip a beat. Maya tucked her hair behind one ear and told her to come inside, and they walked into her bedroom. Maya could hear her heart thumping loudly.

            “So, what is it that you wanted to talk about?” Octavia asked, jumping onto Maya’s bed and leaning her back against the wall, eyes widened in interest.

            “Uhhh…” Maya froze up. She had practiced telling her in the mirror at least ten times but when it came to the real thing, she felt hopeless. She plopped down next to Octavia, unsure of how to tell her.

            “Everything okay?” Octavia asked, face turning to one of concern. She placed a hand on Maya’s shoulder to comfort her, unintentionally causing Maya to become tense. Sensing this, Octavia slowly removed her hand.

            “Yeah, it’s just I don’t know how to say this,” Maya mumbled.

            “Just say it,” Octavia shrugged, “Whatever it is, I’m sure it’ll be okay,” She assured her. She hoped that Maya was finally just going to say what Octavia had been thinking for a while now. She saw the looks Maya gave her, noticed how when they hugged it felt like they were holding onto each other for as long as they could, noticed how she always seemed to be inching closer to her. She had gone to Bellamy for advice on it, who told her to just go for it and kiss her out of nowhere. She cringed at that and purposely ignored any advice from him on that subject. Clarke had given her the best advice so far, which was just to sit down and talk about it one day.

            “Just tell her how you feel or you’re going to regret it one day. Besides, with how you’re describing everything, it seems like she may like you back. Hope everything works out!” She had said over a phone call. Octavia thanked her and hung up after that, feeling a little better about her situation.

            “I just… I just feel like things won’t be okay after what I have to say,” Maya confessed, curling herself up into a ball. She put her head in between her knees, not wanting to look back up at the girl she had fallen for so fast. Octavia didn’t want to push her to respond. She just wanted to comfort her and tell her everything would be all right. So, she summoned up all her courage and blurted out the words she knew Maya was too afraid to say.

            “I have a crush on you, okay?” Octavia stated like it was just a simple fact. Maya pulled her head up so quickly she could’ve sworn she got whiplash.

            “Wait, seriously?” Maya asked in disbelief.

            “Wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it,” Octavia replied.

            “Uh, me too, you know,” Maya told her, a huge grin across her face. Knowing that Octavia had a crush on her back was something amazing. It felt as beautiful as every sunset she had watched through her bedroom window, as magical as the falling snow of wintertime that tickled her nose and made her laugh, as natural as the change in the seasons. It felt like every puzzle piece had been connected.

            “So, what do we do now?” Octavia asked. Maya shrugged her shoulders.

            “No idea. Want to just watch something?”

            “Sounds good with me, and I’ve been watching this webseries called Carmilla and it’s great so we should totally watch that,” Octavia responded. “It’s also really fucking gay so like… that.”

            “Sold,” Maya laughed. They cuddled up under a huge fluffy blanket, Octavia holding her phone while they both watched Carmilla, only pausing to get up and get more snacks or go to the bathroom. Though Octavia was rewatching it, she was still anticipating the last episode of season one, and could tell Maya was just as excited.

            “When are these two going to just kiss already come on?” Maya whined after they had danced together.

            “Just wait,” Octavia replied, a smirk on her face.

          **Octavia:**   **hey clarke, guess whatttt???**

**Clarke: omg what???**

**Octavia: i uh… may or may not be dating maya (i totally 100% am this is the best day ever)**

**Clarke: ahhh!!! so happy for you congrats. told u it would all work out**

**Octavia: i knowww lmao thanks for the advice ur a tru Mom Friend**

**Clarke: no problem haha**

After a while Octavia started getting tired and started to doze off for a few minutes. Maya looked over at her- friend, no, _girlfriend_ \- and smiled. She looked so peaceful while she slept and Maya didn’t want to disturb her at all. She finished up season one and put Octavia’s phone down on the bed, not wanting to move Octavia who had her head resting on her shoulder. She stretched her arm to reach her phone on her desk, and felt Octavia make some sort of noise. She paused for a second, but after Octavia just snuggled closer to her she breathed a small sigh of relief and grabbed her phone. She changed her facebook profile to saying “In a relationship” and knew Octavia would grin the next time that she checked her phone notifications. She had one hand holding her phone and the other stroking Octavia’s hair as she read through a few of the fanfics she had bookmarked a while ago. Most of them were fairly tame, but some of them she had to bite her tongue to keep from making any noise.

            “Mmmm, how long was I asleep?” Octavia finally awoke, rubbing her eyes.

            “’Bout an hour or so,” Maya responded, pressing a kiss to her cheek. Octavia blushed and wrapped an arm around Maya’s side, still amazed that everything actually worked out fine. She almost fell back asleep, but then Maya pressed a gentle kiss to her lips and Octavia could’ve sworn she never felt more awake in her whole life than in that moment. After pulling back for a second to make sure that this wasn’t just some sort of dream (because wow did it feel like one), she went in for a kiss.

            The kiss felt like every crescendo Maya had ever played, constantly growing and feeling louder by the second. Each press of the lips felt like a prelude to something more grandiose, something with potential. It was a serenade of quiet moans and gasps, an exploration that was new and exciting. It was playing a song, evolving and changing but still amazing throughout. She felt nearly breathless after a few minutes, but in the best way possible. She pulled back slightly, forehead still pressed against Octavia’s.

            “I love you,” She whispered before she pressed her lips back against Octavia’s. She felt Octavia’s warm hands pushing her to lie down on the bed, and completely gave in. The kiss was slow and a bit sloppy, but Maya couldn’t imagine her first kiss turning out any other way. They both laughed when Octavia’s hair kept getting in the way of their kiss, and they both turned to lie on their sides, only breaking the kiss for a few short seconds. Octavia felt a sense of wonder in their kiss. She felt all warm and fuzzy inside, like how she felt when eating gingerbread cookies in winter and how she felt when she got a butterfly to land on her fingertip last summer. It was the stars twinkling in the sky. It was more specifically the North Star, guiding her towards Maya this whole time, guiding her home. She couldn’t stop smiling for the rest of the night.


	37. Adventure

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm actually starting to wrap things up like i'm having the small conflict between Raven and her aunt being resolved and this chapter is pretty much just confirming princess mechanic as endgame and everything is ending so soon omg. also threw in some more spanish bc i'm making raven bilingual in this fic even if the show won't, so google translate it if needed but i mean it's not too hard to figure out if you just use some context clues. next chapter is focused on Monty and it'll actually be the last chapter before the two really long ones that i'm going to finish this off with, so yeah it's about to end really soon
> 
> thank you to everybody that's been commenting, it means so much that people have actually enjoyed this and have stayed with it despite my weird update schedule so yeah thank you a lot

            Raven’s aunt was in town. She discovered this upon walking into her house after school and seeing her aunt and her aunt’s husband relaxing on the living room couch, her aunt’s legs sprawled across the couch as she leaned up against her husband. She gave them a small smile and a wave as she walked in, still not on the best terms with her aunt, but she promised herself she would try to make things better, and she wanted to keep that promise.

            “How was school today, Rave’?”

            “Ehhh, era típico, pero bueno.”

            “Eso es bueno escuchar,” Her aunt responded with a nod of her head. Raven walked back to her room and threw her backpack and purse down on her bed before she flopped down on it herself.

            She took out her phone to search for things to do that weekend. She wanted to go out on a date with Clarke since they hadn’t been on one in a while, and really wanted to get out of the house in general. She couldn’t figure out if it was just the rebellious teenager in her or just boredom, but being in the house nearly every day- especially when it was nice outside- was started to get on her last nerve. Raven scrolled through the multiple lists she found online, and saw that the zoo near them was having a day to get in free really soon. She smiled at the idea, already imagining seeing all the adorable animals, and texted Clarke right away to see if she wanted to go.

            “Raven, come here!” She heard her aunt yell. She slumped out of her room, each footstep seeming to weigh her down.

            “Qué es?”

            “Mira este video hilarante,” Her aunt beckoned for her.

            Raven had to admit that the video was actually pretty funny. Then again, it was sort of hard to say that a video of a fake skeleton dancing to the song “Staying Alive” wasn’t funny.

            “Otra, otra!” Raven exclaimed, taking a seat on the edge of the couch. Her aunt sat up so that Raven could have more room while she showed her some more funny videos. Raven couldn’t deny that it was a good time just sitting there watching funny videos with her aunt, and was glad that she was still in her life. She knew a few people who had dysfunctional families that had threatened each other with death, and was thankful that she knew her family would never end up that way. After a few minutes Raven got a text back from Clarke and quietly excused herself, feeling like the weight on her from earlier had been lifted. Things were better.

            **Clarke:**   **I would love to go to the zoo!!! i want to see the penguins i bet they’re adorable**

**Raven: Omg yes and also consider this: we get to see a lots of different cute cats  
            Raven: *a lot**

**Clarke: yes that’s also an excellent point i’m so hypeddd**

**Raven: i just realized i haven’t even been in like two years i feel like i’ve been deprived lmao**

**Clarke: omg same tho**

The sun was shining and the sky was a pale blue with enough clouds for a decent amount of shade as Raven and Clarke walked into the zoo, both of them filled to the brim with excitement. Both of them made sure their phones were fully charged so they would be as prepared as possible to take tons of pictures to fill up both their snapchat stories and also their phone storage. Clarke slathered herself in sunscreen the second she walked in, knowing her pale skin would definitely burn if she didn’t, but Raven just decided she’d be fine without and threw her hair in her typical ponytail.

            The closest and therefore first exhibit was the insect house. Raven took a picture of a honeycomb and put it on snapchat with **#save the bees** as her caption. She looked around at all the neat beetles and insects that looked like sticks when they moved and was fascinated by nearly everything. By nearly, that was to say that she could’ve gone without seeing any cockroaches. Raven checked the little map to see where in the world the huge cockroaches were and mentally made a note to never in her life travel there. Clarke and Raven’s favorite part of the insect house was the small butterfly area. Despite the humidity, plenty of butterflies were fluttering around them and Clarke had never felt more filled with wonder in her life. Raven saw wings of orange with black spots on them flying near her and attempted to get the butterfly to land on her fingertip. She tried doing this on multiple occasions, but to no avail; she gave up after about five minutes. Clarke lightly tugged on her sleeve and told her the humidity was starting to get to her, to which Raven agreed and they continued to walk.

            After going through the reptile house and looking at the lizards and the adorable little poison dart frogs for about five minutes, Raven wanted to go see the cat house, which was luckily close in proximity to the reptiles. Clarke linked her arm with Raven’s and they merrily skipped the few short feet to go see the many different types of cats. Raven started slightly laughing at the sign outside that outlined why it was a bad idea to take home any cat that wasn’t a domestic housecat.

            “I get that it’s supposed to discourage me from taking home an Ocelot, but I feel like I could totally deal with the scratching. I think this sign backfired,” Raven said. Clarke grinned and rolled her eyes.

            “Raven, no,” was all Clarke responded with.

            “Raven, yes!” Raven shouted back as they walked into the exhibit.

            Raven ended up taking at least thirty pictures. Not thirty pictures in total, but thirty pictures of each individual cat. She had no excuse besides her love for them, especially the clouded leopard that was jumping around constantly. She also took a fondness towards the sand cat they had there and wanted to just hold it in her arms, even though she knew she couldn’t. Clarke was looking at the fishing cat, which kept coming closer to her and started pawing on the glass that was separating them. Clarke put one hand gently on the glass and pretended they were touching each other. After a while Clarke ended up dragging Raven away from her precious cats so they could make sure they would also see the rest of the animals that day.

            They saw elephants, rhinos, lions, and even flamingos before finally seeing the penguins. Clarke’s eyes lit up when she saw the penguins waddle around, glad that they had come to the zoo today. She immediately took out her phone and started snapping pictures to have something to look back on in a few days from now when she was bored. She was tempted to just climb over the fence and be closer to the penguins, but also didn’t feel like getting banned from the zoo, and resigned herself to just getting as close as possible to the fence and admiring the penguins from a small distance.

            “Raven, look at their little tiny feet, they’re so cute!”

            “They’re adorable,” Raven agreed, smile wide and bright on her face. Clarke was overjoyed to see the penguins, and Raven was just glad that everything had been going well the last few days.

            Eventually they both got tired of walking around in the smoldering heat and decided to head back to Raven’s house, a slight change from their usual going to Clarke’s house to chill out. Raven unlocked the door, the easiest sign that her mom was still at work, and motioned for Clarke to come inside and make herself right at home. They walked back into Raven’s bedroom, Raven lighting a candle that smelled like peaches, and both sat down on the bed, Clarke with her head on a pillow and legs up on Raven’s lap; Raven sat with her back against the wall her bed was against, glad that at least she had a full sized bed so her legs didn’t awkwardly hang off the edge of the bed.

            “Hmmm… I’m bored,” Clarke said, “Entertain me,” She raised one eyebrow suggestively.

            “And how could I ever do that?” Raven replied, purposely looking in Clarke’s direction while she bit her lip.

            “Totally have no clue at all whatsoever,” Clarke responded, keeping up the good balance between sarcasm and flirting they had going.

            “Well then I guess you’re just going to be bored,” Raven retorted, pretending to act amused by her phone. Clarke sat up, inches away from Raven’s face. Raven put her phone on the floor within a second and smirked.

            They leaned in at the same time. Clarke grinned into their kiss, pushing her own hair back behind her ear with one arm while her other hand started slowly making its way up Raven’s shirt. Raven gasped and made quiet noises when she felt Clarke’s hand on her lower stomach.

            “Your hands are cold,” She laughed in between kisses.

            “Whoops,” Clarke replied. Raven didn’t mind one bit. She loved the feeling of Clarke’s hands all over her. She especially loved when Clarke would start running her nails down her back. Clarke had one hand pressing on Raven’s bra and her other hand grabbing Raven’s ass. Raven couldn’t help but press deeper into the kiss and moan, her breathing growing more uneven by the second. Clarke could be such a tease, and Raven loved her and hated her for it at the same time.

            “Just take my shirt off already oh my god,” Raven said quickly. Clarke grinned and did as she said, discarding the shirt on the floor. Raven decided to get her revenge by pressing torturously slow kisses on Clarke’s neck. She loved to hear Clarke’s little whining noises she made whenever she did that, and this time was no exception. She moved all the way down to Clarke’s collarbone and pressed kisses along there, savoring every little whimper Clarke let out of her mouth. Clarke started to pull on Raven’s hair, just trying to get a solid hold on something, and Raven let out a quick moan before kissing her way back up Clarke’s neck so she could press her lips against hers in a sloppy kiss. Clarke still smelled the smallest bit like sunscreen and Raven’s hair had at least a little bit of sweat in it, but neither of them cared. The kiss felt like the true start of summer time, and they both loved summer more than anything else.


	38. Pride

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> basically just Monty coming out as ace and everything is good and happy and fluffy (listen okay i started writing this fic before season three even existed so in this fic monty is still going to be ace and also hella gay, but in anymore fics i write in the future with jonty monty is obviously going to be bisexual with a heavy leaning towards guys so yeah just wanted to clear that up really quick). next chapter is uh... graduation wow how the time seems to fly by. the next chapter will probably be up either late tonight or really early tomorrow morning, and there's only going to be one more chapter after the graduation one so yeah this fic is actually about to end whoa. hope you enjoy!!

            It was time. Monty decided to just post on facebook that he was asexual, figuring that while it wasn’t a big deal it was annoying him on the inside that only a select few people knew about it. He knew that he didn’t have to tell anybody and that his life would still go on as it always did without coming out again, but he felt that he would feel more free if he just told everybody, and he knew that most people would understand and be chill with it from previous coming out experiences. So, he had posted on facebook about ten minutes ago “by the way, i’m asexual (and before you ask yes me and @Jasper Jordan are still dating and very much in love)” and was just watching the likes and comments roll in. Jasper was sitting next to him and reading some of the comments aloud for him, Monty still being afraid to look.

            “Oh hey, Luna says that she’s also on the asexual spectrum, and she’s very proud of you for posting about it,” Jasper told him, pointing at the nice comment that she left. Monty grinned, glad that people actually seemed to be taking it pretty well.

            “Also Roe says that they’re also ace, and that you two can be ace buddies,” Jasper said, a smile on his face. He was just glad that his boyfriend was finally confident enough in who he was to tell everybody. He handed Monty the phone and told him to read and respond to the comments while he went to the bathroom really quick.

            **Murphy: alright cool cool, but also what is that?? not trying to sound rude just v confused**

**To Murphy: basically i experience no sexual attraction aka murphy i will never find you sexy in my life**

**Murphy: #rude (seriously tho proud of u dude)**

**Bellamy: Congrats on telling people!! Takes a lot of courage to do and I’m glad you felt comfortable enough to do so**

**To Bellamy: Thanks!**

**Maya: I feel proud bc you told me this like three weeks ago**

**To Maya: that’s bc we’re bffs for life I’ve decided**

**Bryan: We should celebrate this with ice cream or something like I know we barely ever hang out or talk but I feel that this should be celebrated haha**

**To Bryan: No need to celebrate but who am i to turn down ice cream??? text me whenever u wanna chill**

**Bryan: we could probably go tonight and i could also bring miller along if that’s cool with u**

**To Bryan: yeah that’s fine let’s do ittt**

**Lincoln: Awesome dude! Proud of u for coming out**

**To Lincoln: Thanks yo!!**

**Hannah: You know I’ll always accept you no matter what!! Love you**

**To Hannah: Love you too, mom.**

Monty continued replying to comments for what seemed like hours on end until Byran actually did end up texting him about going out for ice cream. He agreed on the condition that Jasper could also come with, and Bryan said his car had plenty of room for the four of them. He pulled up to Monty’s house about fifteen minutes after he had sent out the text, and Monty and Jasper eagerly got into the car, both of them cuddling in the backseat while Bryan just smiled. Miller had one hand resting on Bryan’s thigh while they drove to go get ice cream, glad that it finally felt hot enough outside for them to fully enjoy ice cream.

            Monty got two scoops of mint chocolate chip in a cone and sat outside, happy that the tables had umbrellas covering them to create some much needed shade. Jasper pulled out a chair and sat down next to him, licking his ice cream cone with speed so it wouldn’t drip down him like it usually did. Monty felt the rain before he even saw it. A drop of water dripped its way down to splash on the tip top of Monty’s ice cream cone. Monty frowned. _Come on, it’s sunny outside, it shouldn’t be raining._ Still, the weather couldn’t be avoided and they ended up going inside to finish eating their ice cream, Bryan shivering at how cold it was inside. He could’ve sworn they had their air conditioning at freezing levels.

            “I’m so ready to be done with this school year,” Jasper said to no one in particular.

            “Same,” Monty and Miller replied at the same time.

            “Jinx!” Monty yelled before knocking on the table, even though it wasn’t a wooden one.

            The day passed by as most did, Monty feeling better than normal. When they got back home they returned to working on some of their end of the year projects for their classes, namely their biology class where they had to make a pamphlet on something they had learned that year. The teacher had given instructions so vague that Jasper had to ask her at least five questions for verification, and they were both still a little bit lost. Monty was determined to do the best he could do on it to finish out strong, but Jasper was just aiming to get above a 75% since he had a high enough grade in the class to just slack off on the last project. Monty also had almost the exact same grade, but he was way more driven to actually do all of his work.

            Monty checked his phone the next morning to find it still blowing up with notifications, and smiled to himself. People were still liking and commenting on his status in a mainly positive way, and he was at peace. He hated the people at his school at times, but right now, he was grateful that he went to such an accepting school. Jasper woke up to find Monty on his phone, and leaned over his shoulder to read through the comments himself. Jasper slowly took Monty’s phone out of his hand, purposely capturing his attention to give him a kiss that was only the smallest bit tainted with morning breath. Monty couldn’t be happier if he tried.


	39. Graduation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I mean... the title is pretty much all that this chapter is focused on. Also yes I'm well aware that this is like the 3rd update in 24 hours but I also graduate tomorrow so I've been finishing this up (which honestly I hope this doesn't seem rushed because of that but I feel like it's pretty much fine idk). Next and final chapter is an epilogue of sorts that's from Clarke's point of view (and yes i purposely started and ended with the same POV in case you were wondering). I hope you enjoy this chapter and I hope it makes you feel a whole range of emotions haha
> 
> also slight trigger warning for mentioning of past self-harm, but nothing at all even close to graphic so yeah

            Tonight was the night. They had been through graduation rehearsal the day before, had double checked their caps and gowns to make sure that they fit, had said their last goodbyes to all of their teachers that helped them and guided them throughout their years at Mount Weather High School. Bellamy was saddest to say goodbye to his teacher that had taught him both US History and also Government and Politics that next year by some incredibly good luck. He had always been the most entertaining teacher who was very passionate about history, and Bellamy admired him. Murphy stopped by his freshman English teacher and thanked her for defending one of his ideas that he brought up in a group discussion years ago. She was the first teacher that had actually stood up for him, and even if it was just some odd interpretation, she was the one that made Murphy realize that his thoughts weren’t always terrible and unnecessary. Bellamy almost broke down in tears while saying his thanks to the school’s football coach for always encouraging him to do better and to always keep stretching his limits. He knew that he most likely wouldn’t play football in college, but he would never forget that feeling of adrenaline he always had in him on Friday nights under the lights.

            Bellamy was putting on his cap, tugging it tightly on his head. Octavia had Maya over, and both of them were in Octavia’s room just watching TV for the time. Murphy was already ready to go and was just sitting down on the living room couch, thinking of how exciting the night was going to be. He looked down at his wrist and grinned. There wasn’t a scar in sight. It almost felt unreal, but he was graduating without any scars that needed to be hidden. Bellamy kept adjusting his cap, turning it an inch to the right, and then turning it back two inches to the left. He knew he would be fidgeting with it the whole night, but dropped it for the moment. They had to leave in half an hour to be there on time, and he knew that his mom would start nagging him any second now to take pictures. He adjusted it once more and then heard his mom yell.

            “Bellamy, Murphy, come outside to take pictures!”

            “Coming, mom,” Bellamy shouted back. Murphy followed Bellamy’s lead as they stood in front of the pine tree to take pictures. His mom called Octavia out of her room to come take pictures with her older brother, and Octavia readily obliged and took plenty of pictures, knowing that her mom would want to remember this day for as long as she was still alive.

            Meanwhile, Monty and Jasper were in the chaotic mess that was the orchestra/band room. They had been told to arrive at exactly 3:00, which really meant that they could get away with being five minutes late. Everybody was getting their instruments out of their cases for their final rehearsal, this being only the second time they had played with the band accompanying them. Monty unzipped his case fast, and then immediately held up his rosin and asked if anybody needed it. One of the violin players (she grabbed it so fast Monty didn’t even know which girl it was) snatched it out of Monty’s hand and yelled a thank you as she coated her bow in it. Jasper started asking around for a tuner, and after about two minutes Maya realized she had one and tossed it underhand to Jasper, who started tuning off in a somewhat quiet corner, letting Monty tune after he did. They heard their teacher’s voice boom through the room, and everybody went quiet.

            “Alright, get in your seats and get ready to play, we don’t have much time,” She demanded, tapping her watch to fully convey the point. After taking a few minutes to get everybody tuned and ready, she got ready to start conducting the song. She grabbed her baton and lifted it in the air, ready to give the down beat. _This is it, this is truly the test to see how well we’ve learned this music. Here it goes,_ were Monty’s thoughts as she gave the down beat.

            Bellamy was checking through all of his friend’s snapchat stories on the car ride up to the place they were graduating. They had a high amount of people in their graduating class, and no air conditioning, so they were holding graduation at a local college’s auditorium that was much more spacious and actually had air conditioning. The downside was that the drive was normally at least half an hour, but due to traffic he knew that it would take even longer to actually get there. So, he was using his phone data to see just how many people were taking selfies in their caps and gowns. The answer was that a lot of people were, and plenty of people were using all sorts of different filters. So far the funniest one he had seen was a faceswap gone wrong between Bryan and Miller where it registered Miller’s nose as his face. The results were terrifying but also hilarious, and Bellamy showed the picture to Murphy.

            “Already saw it a few minutes ago, ha!” Murphy bragged, sticking his tongue out at Bellamy. Bellamy stuck his tongue out back at him and continued tapping his way through plenty of snapchat stories. Roma had taken a cute selfie holding her cat while also using the cat filter. She captioned it with **#twins** and Bellamy grinned. Murphy was also looking through stories, and saw Mbege holding up a bottle of beer with the caption **4 after graduation,** and snorted to himself. _Leave it to Mbege to be ready to party the second after graduation ends._ Both of them kept looking through tons of stories, and would lean over to show each other ones with funny captions. Bellamy told Murphy to get in a picture with him, so he did.  Bellamy captioned the selfie with **we’re graduating so soon holy fuck!!!** and put his phone down next to him on his seat. Bellamy asked his mom if she could turn up the radio, and she did. It was on his mom’s favorite station that mainly played songs from the 1980s, but Bellamy liked some songs at times, and didn’t feel like complaining right now. Today was already off to a great start, and tonight would be amazing.

            The bus was loaded up and only a few more people were trying to find seats. Monty and Jasper were sitting together and had their feet on top of their respective viola cases, efficiently making sure that absolutely nobody else could even try to sit with them. They had already seen one seat with three people squished in, but both of them valued their tiny personal bubbles too much to let anybody pop it. Monty heard the familiar sound of his most hated orchestra song, and looked back to see one of the bass players smirking at him.

            “You fucking asshole!” Monty laughed as Carol of the Bells continued to play on.

            “You secretly love it!” They shouted back before switching the song anyways. The back of the bus ended up starting a sing-a-long to any and nearly every High School Musical song, making the mood feel much lighter and way more amusing when people started pumping their fists in the air and putting on neon green shutter shade sunglasses. A few unfortunate souls at the front of the bus forgot to bring headphones and were glaring at the people partying, but Monty couldn’t care about a few people being annoyed. Tonight was the last night they had to celebrate together for at least two and a half months, and he was going to enjoy the fun. Jasper started recording everything and posting it up on his snapchat story, fully planning on downloading his story later tonight to save this memory. The party continued on and on until they pulled into the parking lot, and then they got yelled at to turn the music off, and to get off the bus quietly while double checking that they had absolutely everything and that nothing was left on the bus. Monty and Jasper grabbed their viola cases and shoved their phones in their pockets as they got off the bus, making sure to thank the bus driver. They walked into the auditorium to find it still almost completely empty. _Right, we’re the first group that arrives,_ Jasper remembered. They set their cases off to the side and went off into the room reserved specifically for them, and hung out there for a while while snacking on the food that had been graciously provided for them. After a while the band director came into the room to tell them that they were going to be playing in twenty minutes, and to finish up their food and get in their seats. Monty suddenly had the realization that this was actually happening, that the seniors were all actually about to graduate really soon. They walked to their seats and made sure everybody was in tune. While tuning, Monty spotted two of the orchestra seniors walking over towards them and didn’t know if he wanted to smile and congratulate them or start crying because they were going to be gone next year. He decided on throwing up a peace sign at them and smiled. It would be okay, and the orchestra would continue on even without them. And really, that was what orchestra was about; it was about growing and changing and always adding or subtracting elements to find that perfect mix. The orchestra would change, but it would still sound unique and original as ever, and that was good.

            Bellamy started walking across the floor of the auditorium as the orchestra played their music in the background. His footsteps were laced with nervousness and excitement both, but were mainly branded by confidence. He knew he could do this. He walked to his assigned seat without fidgeting with his cap, and stayed standing as they were instructed to do. _This is happening. I’m actually graduating like right now. Whoa._ Murphy found his seat in a similar manner, and got annoyed that he had to stand until everybody else had made their way to their seats.

            “All rise for the national anthem,” One of the senior administrators stated in a monotone voice into the microphone. In unison, everybody stood up in their chairs, placed their hand over their heart, and listened to the choir sing the anthem. Bellamy always thought it seemed a little bit too patriotic, but always just went with it.

            “Be seated,” The man said into the microphone, and all the seniors sat down in their chairs finally. The metal chairs were cool and squeaky and gave little room to spread out, but it was expected.

            “And now, a message from our principal,” He finished, giving up the stage as the applause rang through the crowd for their principal.

            “Hello students,” She waved, “It has been an absolute pleasure to be your principal for the past four years. You have all grown and worked hard for all of your various accolades, and I believe that all of you are deserving of your diplomas today. I congratulate you, as many others will, and wish you the best of luck in your future,” She said in a cheerful voice. She handed the microphone over to another administrator and they outlined the rules, putting emphasis on waiting to clap until they were told to, or their child wouldn’t get their diploma that night and would first have to serve twenty hours of community service. After the rules were outlined, the people in the top of the class were told to give their speeches. Most of them were fairly generic, talking about how fast life moves by and how all of us should stop and look around for a minute so that we don’t miss it. However, there was one speech that truly captured Murphy’s attention.

            “Time. Time can fly by or drag on and on. There are moments that it seems to slow down, like when you’re panicking about a test or a relationship problem. There are times when it flies by, when you’re dancing at prom with the person you love most. However, there are some moments where time stops completely. You make a terrible decision that cuts off ties with somebody you love. You have a natural disaster destroy your house and you can’t do anything but watch it all fall apart. In these moments, life seems impossible. Each one of us has faced something that has made time stop for us, but we have all picked ourselves up and carried on, and that’s something to be proud of. Congrats to us, class of 2016. We’ve made it.” It was the last speech, rightfully so, and got the most applause out of any of them. Murphy felt himself almost choking up, close to tears, but luckily after that names started getting called.

            They walked across the stage one by one, each of them clutching their diploma in their left hand and shaking hands with everybody on stage with their right hand as they were told to do so. Most amazing of all was that parents actually did hold back their applause until they were told to applaud once the twenty or so kids from each advisory had walked across stage. Bellamy was in the third group of people that graduated. He took his steps up on stage, feeling like this still wasn’t actually happening, like he was watching this happen from outside of his own body. He took his diploma, smiling, and shook hands with the principal first, and then the rest of the administrators. _Whoa._ He walked off the stage just fine, feeling the slightest bit lightheaded. It was overwhelming to say the least. He saw the flash go off on the camera and tried to smile as naturally as he could while his picture was taken by the photographer. _This is happening._ He sat back down in his seat and could only pay attention to the clapping that he heard. Bellamy pinched himself, and once he felt the sting he knew that it really was real, no matter how much it felt like it wasn’t.

            Murphy stood up, legs trembling, as he tried not to puke out of nervousness as he grabbed his diploma and held it tightly in his grip. He loosely shook hands with the people on stage, relieved that he had nothing to feel ashamed of. His scars had faded. He wouldn’t ever be able to forget them, but he was healing. He was moving onto better things in life. He had survived. He walked off the stage and told the photographer to hold on one second so he could blink before the flash hit him. The camera made a light shuttering noise and Murphy grinned. He sat back down in his seat, bored while he watched the rest of the people in his class receive their diplomas. He zoned out, and luckily the girl next to him noticed it and tapped him on his shoulder when they were down to the last few people.

            “You may now move your tassels to the right and stand up,” The principal announced. Tons of cheering commenced as it sunk in that they had done it. They finally graduated. The orchestra started to play the recessional as people started filing out. The music stopping made it fully resonate that they were finished. This was the dream; this was reality.


	40. End; Begin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here comes a sappy and really long authors note so be prepared
> 
> Throughout high school, I myself have been through ups and downs and everything in between. I've had days where it seemed all to easy to just waste away and do nothing but just last through another day, and those days I really did just sort of survive. That's what my first year of high school was for me; a lesson in survival. I didn't really want to write or do anything besides watch TV, eat food, and sleep. However, I did want to play music, I did. If it weren't for me being in orchestra I know my high school experience would've been much different, and while there's none of that in this chapter, having Monty and Jasper be orchestra nerds was sort of a way to put a bit of myself in the story. Really, some of my memories over the past few years have been intertwined into this, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. I know to write what I know about, and that's high school. This has been an ongoing project that I really don't believe I could've finished sophomore or junior year of high school and been proud of. In some ways, it's a good thing that I'm posting this last chapter on the day of my own graduation. I've been through all of high school and I've learned to live and do what makes me happy, and writing makes me happy. One important aspect of high school is self-discovery and learning who you as a person are, and there's definitely a few characters in here that have started figuring out who they are and have changed themselves for the better, and that's a good thing. I hope that anybody reading this has found some sort of guidance or advice, or most of all, hope that things can and will get better if you just give it enough time. High school is a journey, and sometimes the destination really doesn't end up mattering that much in the end. Today ends both this fic that I've been working on for almost two years now, and it also ends my own high school career. And sure, it's an ending, which sucks, but all good things must eventually come to an end. Thank you so much to everybody that's encouraged me to continue writing this with all the kind comments I've received (they really have meant the world to me), and I hope that I've ended this in a way that actually makes it feel like an ending. For the last time, I hope you enjoy reading this, and I hope you've enjoyed this high school AU that I started one day out of practically nowhere just because I felt like writing. Again, thank you to everybody that's taken the time to read this. When I was 15 I never expected this fic to go on this long, but it has, and I've grown more proud of it by the day.

            The seniors were gone and the school felt like a ghost town. The underclassmen still had a full week left of school, but this Friday was yearbook signing day combined with locker clean out in the morning. Clarke was standing at her locker and going through everything that was in it. She found pieces of notebook paper crumbled up with writing on it that couldn’t be deciphered due to where the rips were. She assumed it was probably some of her math homework that she crumpled up when she got frustrated. She gladly dunked that into one of the many garbage cans that was scattered around the hallway. She found a few more pieces of notebook paper cluttering up her locker and made another contribution to the garbage can. It felt good shedding herself of all that clutter. All of this year would soon be in the past and she would have a sort of fresh start as a senior. Clarke had been consistently checking her final grades to see what scores she got on her finally exams, and luckily, she didn’t do too bad. None of her finals wrecked her grades, and she ended up passing with a C or above on every single one. Despite the struggle to keep up with everything, she had fought tooth and nail to make sure her grades were where they needed to be, and it had paid off. With her grades, Clarke knew she could definitely get into almost any college she applied to as long as her ACT scores came back a little higher this time around. She had signed up for the June ACT for one last shot at that, and had also signed up for the early October SAT for her last try at that. She knew she would probably burn herself out by working so hard, but the end result would be worth it. The bell rang to signal everybody back to class, and Clarke felt a sense of finality wash over her as she realized this was most likely the last time she would see her teachers from this year.

            The day passed by almost too normally. Most teachers had started movies a few days ago, and all the students completely ignored the movies and were either on their phones or playing card games with each other (the card games ended up getting really noisy, especially Mao whenever another game of that was being played). Clarke made casual conversation with her classmates in between playing people back at Trivia Crack and looking at snapchats of seniors with envy. She wished she could finally be free of this school, but knew that it would have to wait another year. Still, she was okay with it. She was already planning for next year. She had looked up plenty of scholarships to apply for, already planned a few college visits over the summer, and felt prepared as ever. She had to give it to the seniors; they gave her tons of advice on not procrastinating about college because deadlines came around quicker than they thought they would. Clarke was hopeful for the future, and knew it was going to be a great one if things continued the way they did this year.

            By the time sixth bell hit, the anticipation in the school grew so much that it seemed tangible. Clarke was tapping her foot excitedly on the tile floor in her class, and was just waiting for them to release for yearbook signing. Her mom had made sure to buy her a yearbook the second forms were sent out so Clarke could have one, and she was ready to get it signed by everybody she knew. The announcement came on to release everybody to the gym to pick up their yearbooks, and Clarke could hear cheering from multiple classrooms, including her own. She joined in on the yelling as she ran down the three flights of stairs to the gym, hearing her flip flops flop on her way.

            The gym was bustling with excitement, people shouting out their best friend’s names to try finding them in what felt like a mob at the current moment. They had two tables set up diagonally from each other, and the people working were just trying to get yearbooks to as many people as possible. Clarke grabbed hers with the quickness and just stood right by the middle of the gym, not trying to sit on the bleachers just yet. The first person that she ended up finding and actually knowing fairly well was Octavia. She held out her yearbook and a pen and told her to sit down, trade with her, and sign her yearbook. Octavia nodded and sat down criss-cross on the recently cleaned gym floor and flipped open Clarke’s yearbook. Clarke took it back for a second to write her name in the top hand corner and gave it back to her.

            “Wouldn’t want that to get lost,” Clarke said.

            “True,” Octavia replied. She signed a quick, but still sentimental note and handed Clarke’s yearbook back to her, saying that she was going to go try to find some other people. Clarke gave her a thumbs up as she searched to find most specifically Raven, but really just anybody she had shared a few classes with. She found Luna next, wrote down a generic “nice having class with you, have a good summer” in her yearbook, signed her name, and handed it back to her with a grin on her face.

            “Clarke!” Clarke’s head turned so quick that her hair hit her face, and she brushed it away to see Raven standing on her tip-toes and waving at her frantically.

            “Raven!” She yelled back and ran over to her, pulling her into a tight hug. She handed Raven her yearbook and she grabbed it and immediately turned to the back two pages, planning to take up the entirety of one of them. She started writing out both a love note and an ode to their friendship in the same note, her cursive growing less legible the more that she wrote down. She peeped her head up for a second to see Clarke grinning as she also wrote a note that sprawled down a little over half the page so far, and was glad that they ended up together. Raven passed Clarke’s notebook back to her after she finished signing it and putting tons of hearts around the note, and told her to wait until she got home to read it because it was forever long. Clarke agreed she would wait to read it and walked around collecting short notes and signatures from some other people until they were finally released for the year.

            The final bell rang and music was blaring from multiple speakers that people had brought in, and Clarke embraced the feeling of it finally being summertime. She walked out of the school feeling proud that she made it another year, and while she dreaded her summer homework and going back next year, for now she was free to celebrate and do what she wanted. She shoved her yearbook into the bottom of her backpack and threw her hands in the air as she ran out, excited and shouting.

            “We did it!” Clarke paused for a second to take in a deep breath and look up at the sky, taking a mental snapshot of the moment. She let her hair be blown by the wind, not caring if it got messy. She tugged on her shorts that were starting to ride up and smoothed her tank top as she ran out to her car. She rolled down the windows and started singing along loudly and off-key to the Fall Out Boy CD she had in her CD player. She felt happy and free.

            Clarke got home and got her yearbook out, anxious to read Raven’s note, which was incredibly long. It started off with a cheesy “roses are red, violets are blue, you love me, and I love you,” which Clarke had to admit was actually adorable and made her blush. She started reading it and though she knew Raven had a way with words, she was always fairly secretive about her writing, so to even have such a long note meant the world to her. She read through every last word of it, and found herself close to tears by the end. Unlike her past two years of high school, she hadn’t just survived this year; she lived.

            **_Dear Clarke,_**

**_This year with you has been incredible. It started off rough with homecoming, but you got through that, and I was glad I could be by your side supporting you through it. The fact that you didn’t go back to Bellamy after what he did took so much strength, and I’m proud of you for never trying to call him to figure out what you did wrong, because you did nothing wrong and you deserved better than him. I never thought you would actually fall in love with me, by the way. I know I’ve already told you before, but I was pining over you since the day I saw you walk into one of my classes. It felt like I was waiting eons on you, but now that we’re together, I’d be fine spending an eternity together with you. The moment you kissed me felt like fireworks exploded inside of me and it was everything I could’ve ever wanted. You’ve been my best friend and my girlfriend at the same time. You’ve been somebody I can count on when things get tough, and you always manage to put a smile on my face, no matter the situation. Every moment with you feels like a dream, but it’s not a dream, it’s real. I know that people say high school sweethearts never last, but I also know both of us will fight for who we love, and since we love each other, I know that we’ll stay together for hopefully a long, long time. You’ve made this year amazing for me, and I hope that our future together is just as incredible. Love, Raven._ **


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